


Found

by tenacioussurrender



Series: A Ripple in Time and Space [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AKA the best tag ever, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Brother Diego Hargreeves, Dad Diego, Diego Hargreeves-centric, Gen, Good Sibling Diego Hargreeves, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Number Five | The Boy Gets A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Season 3 Speculation, Some Comics Elements, Sparrow Academy, Young Number Five | The Boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 63,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26537725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenacioussurrender/pseuds/tenacioussurrender
Summary: Disappearing once isn't enough. Twice? No, this is Five's third time disappearing from his family. He guesses he should be used to it by now - the loneliness that carves a hole deep in his chest, leaving an ache he can never quite heal.Part 3 of "A Ripple in Time and Space" Series. Please read Part 1 & 2 first!
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Series: A Ripple in Time and Space [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904056
Comments: 580
Kudos: 434





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again friends!! Welcome to the (probably) last installment of "A Ripple in Time and Space." Enjoy!

Five closes his eyes as he feels his powers envelop him and his siblings. _Focus._ He tells himself with clenched fists and gritted teeth. _April 2nd 2019. Focus._ He pulls, the feeling of his siblings’ hands grounding him as the world fades away. _April 2nd 2019. April 2nd 2019._ His brain murmurs as time flashes past them. Five tries to force his mind to picture the date and nothing else but he can’t help but feel his thoughts drift to the conversation his siblings had in the car. _I’d be a good dad for him, sure, whatever you say._ Five smiles. He feels like he’s fourteen again. _Fourteen._ Before this mountain of shit that’s he’s been dealt. Before The Handler showed up and took everything from him. _Focus!_ His brain shouts as he feels the 1990's pass by. _April 2nd 2019. No earlier, no later. Siblings arriving with minds and bodies intact. April 2nd 2019._ They’re close, he can feel it. 2010 passes. The next moment it’s 2018. He starts pushing on the brake, focusing his mind to slow them down. January 22 2019. February. March. He pulls and lands on his feet. He blinks, his siblings’ hands are gone. He’s surrounded by a sea of red suits. 

* * *

“So, let’s just recap for a second. Five’s missing, Ben’s alive but emo now, Dad’s alive, and there’s a discount Umbrella Academy who’ve stolen our lives. Did I miss anything?” Klaus asks with a wide nervous smile.

“Discount Umbrella Academy my ass.” 

A woman with long, black hair steps out of the shadows. Her purple eyes are piercing as they scan the Hargreeves siblings. 

“Damn, girl, are those contacts? Cause wow you’re really working them.”

Diego wants to stab Klaus. He knows jokes are his brother’s defense when he’s anxious, but with every quip, the Sparrow Academy looks more and more murderous. The group ignores Klaus, leaving their spots to head downstairs. 

“Number One, who the hell are these people?” A muscular, tall woman questions, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder as she steps into the room.

The rest of the group follows her until they all stand in a line, behind Ben. Diego’s eyes focus on the green cube floating through the air.

“Uh- are you talking to me?” Luther asks, glancing between his siblings.

Vanya shrugs at him.

“Why the hell would she be talking to you, dumbass?” Ben snarls, a hand reaching up to fix his messy hair. 

“Sparrow Academy meet the Umbrella Academy.” Reginald introduces, walking past the Umbrella Academy to stand in line next to Ben.

The man sets a hand on Ben’s shoulder, proud smirk on his face as he addresses the siblings. Diego wants to strangle their father for multiple reasons. For being an abusive bastard, for unadopting them, and for the look currently painted on his face.

“Of fucking course. It’s about time.” The black haired girl hisses, falling into a fighting stance.

The rest of the Sparrow Academy follows suit.

“Whoa, whoa what’s going on here?” Luther questions, hands up in a placating manner.

Diego glares at their father who turns to look at the Sparrow Academy. He makes a motion for one of them to speak up. A man with a scarred body steps forward. Diego can hear Allison gasp next to him. The man is quite a disturbing sight. His face is littered in scars and skin sags in certain spots. He looks like he’s risen from the dead.

“We’ve been training for this day our entire lives.” He explains with a wide smirk.

“Although, you’re missing one, aren’t you? Where’s the little one?” The blonde woman asks, deep voice echoing through the room.

Diego deflates. Ben watches him with a knowing smirk.

“Doesn’t matter. Either dead or if not he’ll come for them.” Reginald says nonchalantly, motioning to the siblings.

“You bastard!” Diego shouts, pulling a knife out.

Before he can throw it, a whirling sound catches his attention. His eyes fall on the cube. It’s molded into a different shape now, a gun. Diego starts to shout at his siblings to get down but the cube beats him to it, shooting darts out in a quick succession. The darts hit their marks. Diego’s knife clatters to the ground as whatever was in the needle enters his blood stream leaving him paralyzed. He falls to the ground, landing onto his side. He stares into Allison’s terrified eyes. He wants to comfort her, but his tongue has turned to a brick in his mouth. His eyelids twitch as he attempts to stay awake. The last thing he sees is Ben’s malicious scarred face grinning down at him.

* * *

Five immediately reaches for his powers, they sputter out. Blue fizzles like sparks into the air. He jerks around at the sound of someone tutting at him. A tall creature walks through the sea of red.

“Ah, Five, what a pleasure to see you again. You look...younger. Did someone forget to adjust their time dilation calculations?” A mechanical voice asks. 

“Who the hell are you?” Five snarls, hands raised in fists.

The man with a fish bowl for a head looks shocked, or at least that’s what Five can assume based on the way the fish opens and closes its mouth.

“So not just your body? You screwed the pooch again, didn’t you?” The man chuckles, pushing past the rest of the red suits, to stand in front of Five.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Five argues, folding his arms and straightening his back.

Despite his attempt to make himself bigger, the man still towers over him. The fish swims around in its bowl, dissecting Five with its big eyes.

“Incredible. I’m A.J., A.J. Carmichael. Pleasure to meet you, Five.” 

The man sticks his hand out. Five ignores it, looking up at him in annoyance.

“What am I doing here? Where are my siblings?” He questions, fingers trembling where they hold his arms.

His left hand aches sharply.

“April 2nd, 2019, where they belong. You know, Number Five, I have to admit, I’m incredibly impressed. I always knew you were special, but wormholes? God, even I didn’t see that one coming. And to think you were able to correctly, for the most part, transport both you and your family back to the future afterwards. I mean, come on, if that’s not a commodity for the Commission, I just don’t know what is.” A.J. chuckles, hands reaching out to fix his suit lapels.

Five’s nose twitches and his eyebrows scrunch together.

“Wormholes?”

A.J. laughs, clapping his hands together.

“Of course, my apologies. That mind of yours, it must be fragile right now.” The fish-man says, reaching a hand up to rest against his glass helmet, as if deep in thought. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Why would I tell you that?” Five challenges, glaring up at the man.

“Because I’ve got a hundred or so trained assassins with guns aimed on you.”

Five drops his gaze. The red suited assassins are a bit intimidating he must admit.

“What do you want from me?” He asks with an exhausted sigh.

His shoulders drop and his hands fall to his side. He clenches his left hand as pain tingles through it.

“I’ll be honest with you Five, because that’s the kind of man I am.” A.J. starts, resting a heavy hand on Five’s shoulder. “I want your powers. Can you imagine how much we could accomplish with wormholes? I mean your traveling abilities are incredible but the potential to go to other galaxies, parallel universes? I cannot count the different ways in which we could utilize your powers here if we could figure out how to...extract them.”

Never mind the fact Five had no clue he had these powers, much less how to use them.

“And if I say no?” Five asks, voice wavering.

“You don’t have a choice. I could threaten your family, but I don’t think that’s necessary. The way you’re standing right now?” The hand on Five’s shoulder tightens. “You’ll drop any minute, I can tell. You’re exhausted.”

Five gulps, legs trembling. The man’s right, his energy reserve is depleted. He can’t use his powers and it won’t be long before he passes out.

“Diego will look for me.” He says, although it comes out shakier than he had intended.

A.J. reaches out with his other hand to grasp Five’s jaw.

“Ah, I doubt we’ll have to worry about that. He thinks you wanted to leave.” The man assures as the fish swims to the bottom of the bowl to stare down into Five’s eyes.

“Why would he think that?” Five asks nervously, gulping.

“Because, it was the truth.”

* * *

Diego wakes in a bed. A bed that isn’t Elliott’s, or his bed in the boiler room, or his childhood bed. He pushes himself up, taking in his surroundings. He’s in a hotel room, a cheap one by the looks of it. He’s taken back to the last time he was in a hotel. It hadn’t gone too well. Based off of the ominous energy in the air, he has a feeling this time won’t end up much better. He steps onto the floor, his shoes sinking into the soft carpet. He reaches for his knife holster, but it's gone. He’s weaponless in a strange place and alone. _Great_. He shuffles through the dark room until he finds a light switch. He flicks it on. The light bulb in the lamp flickers to life. He examines the room closer. He starts in the bathroom, it’s quite normal. He returns to the main room and goes through the drawers. He checks under the bed. Nothing’s out of the ordinary. But, there’s no windows and that is kinda strange, he considers as he steps up to the door. He slowly opens it. He cringes as the door creaks open. It reveals...a normal hallway. He steps out of the room. A sudden wave of déjà vu hits him as he stares down a never ending hallway. He whips his head around, the other end seems to go on forever as well.

“Where the hell am I?” He whispers to himself, staring down the hall.

“You’re in Hotel Oblivion.”

Diego whirls around, arms up in defense. The door across from his is ajar. Bright, inquisitive eyes stare at him through the darkness.

“Who are you?” Diego questions, glancing down the hallway again.

When he ensures no one else is sneaking around, he turns to fully face the open door.

“I don’t have a name.” The man answers, stepping out of the darkness.

His eyes are steel as he stares at Diego. It feels as if he’s staring into his soul.

“Hotel Oblivion. It’s where he sends all of us who interfere.” The man clarifies, looking up and down Diego’s body.

Diego shivers as he asks, “He?”

“Father.” At Diego’s confusion, the man specifies. “Hargreeves.”

Diego reels, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” He questions, eyes moving past the man to scan his room.

It looks like a mirrored version of his own.

“Those of us who could cause problems, he...removes from the equation.”

“And puts us in a hotel?” Diego queries, focusing his attention back on the short man.

“This isn’t just a hotel, Diego. Once you’re put in here you can never get back out.” The man explains, eyes remaining sharp as he stares into Diego’s face.

Diego blinks and folds his arms across his chest feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable.

“And how do you know that? How did you know my name?”

“I know all things.” The man says with a shrug.

Diego snorts.

“If you know all things, then how does this all end? With me rotting away here?” He questions, bouncing on his heels anxiously.

His eyes move to check the hallway again, as if he’s afraid someone will come jumping out. As if this is just a nightmare, or a fun house, or some other equally ridiculous situation he’s gotten himself into.

“Your brother, the small one…” Diego’s eyes jump back at the man’s words. “he messes with my calculations. He’s unpredictable. I cannot foresee his future and for that reason I cannot see yours either. Your futures are entangled that much I do know.”

Diego’s shoulders tense.

“So you don’t know everything?” He asks with a gulp.

The steel eyes finally leave Diego’s face to stare at the ground.

“I suppose not.”

Diego sighs as he rubs his hand along his upper arm. There’s a chill in the air.

“How could you have possibly been a threat to the world?” He wonders aloud.

The small man before him is far from intimidating. Weird and cryptic, sure, but scary? Not so much.

“I saw the fiery future that our father created so I attempted to rectify such future by removing the most potent problem, the man himself. He sent me here instead.” Gray eyes meet Diego’s again. “I’ve been here for fifteen years.”

“Fuck.” Diego curses, unfolding his arms to rub his face with his hands.

When he finally looks up again, the man’s gone and the door’s shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a psa, I haven’t finished reading the hotel oblivion comics so this is just me doing my own thing.

Allison rips the drawers out furiously. She pulls the dresser away from the wall. She tears the sheets off of the bed, pushes the mattress away from the wall. She scours the room, searching for any kind of clue of how she ended up here. She comes up empty, not even a speck out of place. She glances at the door as anxiety churns in her chest. She doesn’t know what’s beyond it, but something feels distinctly not right. She forces her feet to move across the floor until she’s standing directly in front of the door. Her hand reaches out despite herself. She clasps the cold doorknob and twists. She sticks her head out of the room, glancing down the hallway one way and then the other. It almost seems to go on forever. Her heart races as she fully steps out of the room and into the hall. She sucks in a deep breath and takes a few steps forward. She knocks on the door across the hall from her own. She nervously checks to her left and her right, making sure no one takes her by surprise. She can hear someone fiddling with the door handle and steps back, preparing to rumor whoever is on the other side. The door suddenly bangs open and Klaus jumps out, hands raised as if he’s going to karate chop someone. He drops his hands at the sight of his sister and Allison lets out a deep breath.

“Oh, Allison, thank God. This isn’t a bad trip, is it?” Klaus questions, eyes darting up and down the hallway.

“If it is, then I’m having one too.” Allison mumbles, bringing her arms up to fold them across her chest.

“Where are we?” Klaus asks, eyes finally falling onto his sister.

“I...I don’t know. Your door is the first one I knocked on.”

Klaus squints in suspicion, bending to shove his face in Allison’s.

“How do I know you’re real? You could be a hallucination.” He says, staring into Allison’s eyes.

Allison reaches over and pinches her brother’s arm. He yelps, slapping her hand away.

“Fine, not a hallucination.” He grumbles, rubbing his arm.

Allison rolls her eyes.

“Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we need to figure out how the hell to get out of this place.”

“Maybe we should look for the others first.” Klaus offers with a shrug.

Allison nods back at him.

“Let’s just start knocking on doors.”

They do just that, heading down the seemingly unending hallway knocking on every door they come across. 

“I mean are we seriously the only ones here?” Klaus muses aloud, reaching out to knock on the next door. 

“You’re not.” 

At the unfamiliar voice, Allison and Klaus both flinch, twisting around. A woman is standing behind them in the middle of the hallway. She has grey hair and crystal clear irises that stare back at them. 

“Oh thank God, who are you? How’d we get here? Where are we?” Klaus questions in a quick succession, stepping up in the woman’s space.

“I kill everything I touch.” She says simply, eyebrows raised.

Klaus shrieks, jumping backwards. Allison smacks his arm.

“What do you mean?” She asks gently.

“It’s my power.” The woman answers with a sad smile.

She holds her wrinkly hands up in emphasis. Allison’s eyes examine the hands.

“You have powers?” 

“Yes. This guy, he pretended like he was going to take me in, help me with them. I woke up here instead.” The woman says, self-consciously rubbing a hand up and down her arm.

The siblings have a pretty good idea who this guy is that she’s referring to. 

“How many more of us are there?” Klaus asks, glancing between the woman and Allison.

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, we used to think we were the only ones. I’m assuming...despite the wrinkles,” Allison glares at him for that. “That you were born October 1st 1989?”

The woman reels at that, surprise plain on her face. She schools her expression, reaching up to play with her hair.

“A lot of the people here have powers.” She says in place of an answer.

“Where is here exactly?” Allison questions.

“You should find the guy in room 502, he knows everything.” The woman replies, eyes shifting past the siblings and down the hall.

“You mean like…” Allison starts, glancing where the woman is looking.

“It’s his power. He knows all of the past, some of the future. He knows more about this place than anyone else here. ” She says with a shrug.

“Well, that’s convenient. Thank you.” Klaus chuckles, bending to perform an exaggerated bow.

The woman awkwardly bows back at him before heading back into her room. Allison and Klaus turn around and start back down the hallway, searching for room 502. Allison hums as her eyes scan the numbers on the doors.

“Uh-Allison? Am I the only one who sees that guy down the hall?”

Allison glances where her brother is pointing. There is in fact someone down the hall, someone who looks a lot like...

“Diego!” Klaus shouts, running down the hall.

Diego jerks around, surprise on his face. Klaus jumps into his arms. Diego catches him with a grunt.

“Thank God, I thought I was alone here.” Diego says as he pushes his brother out of his arms.

“Nope, we’re all in the strange hotel together.” Klaus smiles, patting Diego’s shoulder.

“Speaking of which, this girl, she told us the guy in 502 knows about this place?” Allison offers, stepping up to her siblings.

She checks the doors next to them, finding 502 a few feet away.

“I’ve already spoken with him. He wasn’t very helpful.” Diego shrugs, glancing at the door.

Allison huffs.

“Dammit. What’d he say?” 

Diego’s face turns sour as he says, “This place is called Hotel Oblivion and it's where Dad sends anyone who gets in the way.”

“In the way of what?” Allison questions with a furrowed brow.

Diego shrugs.

“I don’t know, anyone who threatens the safety of the world I guess.” 

“There’s got to be a way out of here though, right? I mean we have powers, we’re not useless.” Klaus reminds them. 

Although, now that Klaus is thinking about it, he hasn’t seen a single dead person the entire time he’s been in here.

“That guy, he said he’s been here for fifteen years, you think he hasn’t tried everything to escape?” Diego questions.

“Okay, but his power is knowing things.” Klaus snorts.

“And yours is speaking to the dead. Allison’s is rumors. And mine is changing the trajectory of things. How in the hell will any of those help us?” Diego asks, face drawn in annoyance.

Allison can’t help but agree with him, their powers don’t exactly thrive in this situation.

“Luther’s in here somewhere, maybe he can smash us out. Or Vanya, her powers are strong.” Klaus offers.

“Do you really think Dad would put us in here knowing one of us can get out?” Diego asks with a sigh. 

“Maybe we can find someone else in here that can help us?” Allison suggests, glancing between her brothers.

Diego feels frustration growing as his siblings refuse to realize just how desperate of a situation they’re in.

“Someone like who?” He asks, voice tinged in irritation.

Allison considers her words for a moment before specifying, “Someone like Five.” 

Diego’s shoulders drop in defeat. He reaches a hand up to massage the bridge of his nose. He’d been studiously trying to not think about Five.

“If someone like Five is still in here then clearly they cannot get out either.” Diego says through gritted teeth.

“Jesus, Diego, can you be less glass-half-empty?” Klaus teases, shoving his brother’s shoulder.

Diego sighs.

“Can we please just find the others?”

* * *

Vanya and Luther had found each other almost immediately after leaving their rooms.

“I just... I can’t believe Dad! He replaced us, all of us!” Luther complains.

Vanya rolls her eyes, Luther’s been lamenting over their father’s betrayal for the past ten minutes.

“Were you expecting him to replace all of us but you?”

“No, no that’s not what I mean at all.” Luther corrects, looking down at her in surprise.

“It’s just...unadopting us? Isn’t that a little cruel even for him?” He asks, eyes falling to the floor.

“You saw the memories too right? I think he’s more than just a little cruel. Besides he already unadopted Five once, why not the rest of us?” Vanya offers with a shrug.

“Shit, I didn’t even think about it like that.” Luther says, reaching up to scratch at his head.

Vanya glances up at her brother, feeling slightly guilty. She can’t understand his hurt, all she knows of their father is the brutality of their childhood.

“Do you think he’s okay?” She wonders aloud.

“Five? I don’t know…” Luther trails off, eyes catching on a number on one of the doors.

“I bet Diego’s out of his mind with worry. I mean I'm pretty worried myself.”

Luther nods mindlessly, not really listening.

“Yeah...you know I think we’re walking in circles.”

“Why would you say that?” Vanya asks, coming to a stop.

“Well this is the second time we’ve passed room 666.” He answers, pointing behind them.

Vanya’s eyebrows scrunch as she glances behind them at the door.

“There’s a room 666? Isn’t that like an evil number?”

Luther shrugs. They continue walking anyway.

“You think it’s a circle?” Vanya asks as they pass the open doors to the rooms they’d woken up in.

“Maybe...but shouldn’t there be like an elevator or stairs or an exit?”

“Luther, I don’t think we’re in a normal hotel.” She quips, looking at him quizzically.

Luther tilts his head at that in consideration.

Suddenly a shout echoes down the hallway, a shout that sounds exactly like Klaus’s voice. Luther and Vanya look at each other for a moment before turning around and running in the direction of the voice.

* * *

They’re all in Diego’s room. Vanya and Allison sit on the edge of his bed while Klaus lays in between them. Luther and Diego stand next to the bed with their backs against the wall.

“So what’s the plan?” Luther asks, glancing between his siblings.

“I think we should bring all of our information together. Luther and Vanya, did you guys find out anything?” Allison questions, leaning back on her hands. 

“We think the hotel is circular. We couldn’t find any exits or stairs, none of that.” Vanya offers. 

Luther nods in agreement.

“Good, we’re off to a great start.” Klaus moans, rolling over onto his stomach.

Vanya pats his back as he mumbles into the comforter.

“What about you guys?” Luther asks, looking between Allison and Diego.

Allison glances at her brother. Diego’s leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, and he’s staring intensely down at the ground. When she realizes he’s not going to explain, she speaks up instead.

“We know we’re in a place called Hotel Oblivion. Dad sent us here because he thinks we’re a threat to the world.” Allison explains with a heavy sigh.

Klaus rolls over onto his side to add, “Which we are.” 

Allison ignores him, continuing with, “There are other people here, people who have powers. There’s a guy who’s been here for fifteen years, hasn’t found a way out yet.” 

“Promising, huh?” Diego chuckles, finally looking up from the ground.

The siblings all look at him for a moment in concern.

“Have any of you guys tried your powers?” Vanya tentatively asks. 

“I didn’t see any dead people.” Klaus says with a shrug, dropping his head back down onto the bed.

“Well my thought is- if this place is circular, why don’t we try busting through the floor or ceiling? Or even that wall?” She ponders, pointing at the back wall near the bathroom door.

“Wouldn’t hurt to try.” Allison admits, softly smiling at her sister.

Luther steps away from the wall, rolling his shoulders. They’ve got a hotel to escape from.

* * *

Diego sits on the carpeted floor as Luther punches the wall to no avail. He hasn’t even made a dent the past thirty times he’s tried and Diego can’t understand why he keeps testing it as if suddenly he’ll be able to break through the damn thing. The rest of his siblings are all hovering around Luther, cheering him on. Diego sets his head in his hands. His mind betrays him as his thoughts are permeated with his little brother. He had truly thought he’d gotten through to Five, that thoughts of leaving them were left in the past. There hadn’t been a doubt in his mind that Five would be there next to them when they returned to 2019. He had hidden it so well. Diego had thought he’d had his little brother all figured out, that he could read him like the back of his hand. He’d obviously been completely wrong. Five left them. After everything they’d been through together, he’d left. But then again that had only been days after his breakdown, of course Diego’s words weren’t strong enough to change things just like that. How stupid could he be, thinking that he could just fix five years of pain within a few days. Was Five at least safe? Did he drop himself in some desert somewhere? Was he dead? 

Diego’s taken back to when his brother had been missing for those five years. He’d gone almost insane trying to find his little brother. He’d scoured libraries, looking through every piece of news he could get his hands on. He’d questioned people who he deemed suspicious. He begged Patch to look at the files on the Gimble’s and Griddy’s incidents. He had been close to something, he didn’t know what it was at the time, but he knew he was close because that had been when he was thrown back to the 1960’s. He had gotten close, but that took five years. Now, Five’s gone, by his own volition and could be anywhere in the entire world. The situation is incredibly bleak and Diego can’t find a single drop of light in the darkness. 

“Diego, are you okay?” Allison softly asks, crouching in front of her brother.

Diego drops his hands to look up at his sister in agony. 

“I...I know how you must feel. I'm worried about him too, but I know it's different for you. You know, I haven’t seen Claire in so long.” She settles all the way onto the ground, staring into her brother's eyes. “It’s like there’s this hole in my chest where my heart should be, you know? Like she’s out there somewhere, I know she is, but she’s still so far away from my grasp. But she has my heart with her, that much I do know. She knows I love her and that’s what’s important.”

“Five doesn’t know that we love him. He left because he thinks we don’t.” Diego mumbles, reaching up to rub at his tired eyes. 

“Why would he think that?” She asks, setting a hand on her brother’s knee.

“I...I don’t know.” He answers.

Diego feels bad lying so blatantly to his siblings, but it’s not his story to tell and he won’t betray his brother regardless if he left them or not. Allison’s eyes are inquisitive, as if she sees right through him. She doesn’t call him out on it though, face softening even more at Diego’s admission.

“He mentioned that he’d never done time travel with other people before. Maybe something went wrong?” She offers, although the thought of something happening to their little brother makes her feel more queasy than him having left by choice.

Diego’s eyebrows scrunch at that. He hadn’t even considered the possibility. He stands suddenly, Allison falling backwards onto her hands. She stares up at him, watching as he heads over to the rest of their siblings.

“Let’s get the hell out of this bitch.” He suddenly declares, startling his siblings.

Klaus cheers and Luther grins as he goes to punch the wall again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allison: okay but have you considered maybe Five didn’t purposefully leave us Diego  
> Diego: fuck shit bitch


	3. Chapter 3

Ben is trying his best to keep his eyes from rolling out of his head as Reginald interrogates him in his office. He had been asking him questions about the Umbrella Academy for the past ten minutes as if Ben knew anything about those bastards that the man hadn’t already told him.

“I just want to know why they thought they knew you.”

Ben huffs, reaching up to fix his hair. 

“How the hell should I know? I’ve been living here at the academy my entire life, wouldn’t you have known if I was in some sort of cahoots with our adversaries?”

Reginald holds up a finger in the air. 

“Now that I think about it,” Reginald starts, opening his journal. “I remember them mentioning another sibling.”

His eyes scan the page he’d written on the Umbrella Academy after that fateful dinner.

“That’s right. They had another sibling that had supposedly died and they were male.” He says, looking up at Ben from across the desk.

“You think I was their dead brother.” Ben deadpans.

Reginald shrugs, closing the book, and lacing his hands together on the desk.

“How else would they have recognized you?” He questions with a raised eyebrow.

“Hell if I know.” Ben retorts, shuffling on his feet.

Reginald hums, examining Ben from his head to his shoes.

“Alright, Number One. You may go. However, I am to know the moment you feel out of the ordinary.”

“Out of the ordinary?” Ben questions, tapping his foot on the floor.

“If any sort of...memories are to arise.” Reginald specifies with a strange look in his eyes.

Ben nods, turning away from the man. His face drops as he heads out of the office. He jolts as he almost runs straight into Number Three. Her purple eyes scan him from head to toe.

“Ready to train?” She asks with a lifted brow.

“Of course I am.” He answers, rolling his eyes and walking past her.

They head outside, both of their powers are ones that thrive outdoors.

On the gravel, Ben lowers into his fighting stance, hands outstretched and powers thrumming under his skin. Number Three smiles with all her teeth from across the courtyard. She glances up at the sky as she starts to hum. Ben clenches his fists in preparation. Suddenly, he sees it, the wave of black descending from the sky. The sound of wings flapping would be intimidating if he was anyone else. But, he’s Number One, he can take them. He focuses, waiting until the birds are just barely out of reach. The tentacles rip from his chest, smashing through the wave of birds. One of the tentacles slams some of the creatures to the ground, the others grab them out of the air ripping them apart without mercy. Some of the birds get past him, slamming into his face. He swings his hands, slapping them away. Tentacles reach out grabbing the rogue birds and hurling them down into the gravel. When he realizes he’s done, the tentacles are sucked back, disappearing.

“Shit, Number One. What has you so distracted? Normally I’m lucky if I get one past you.”

“None of your damn business, Raven.” Ben huffs, wiping at the sweat on his brow.

“If you’re worried about the little tyke from the Umbrella Academy, we’re supposed to be meeting about him in like an hour.” She offers, kicking birds out of the way as she heads over to him.

“I-I’m not worried about the brat.” He says, although it comes out rather unconvincingly.

He reaches up to tug at his hair and turns away from her.

“Whatever, man.” 

He listens to her leave, the door shutting behind her loudly.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

He shakes himself, stomping inside.

* * *

They had been going at it for what feels like days, but Diego thinks time must work differently here. None of them have gotten hungry or more exhausted than they had already been when they arrived. Diego’s currently sitting on the floor, back resting against the mattress. He leans his head back, eyes closed to attempt to relieve the headache resulting from Klaus cheering for the past however many hours. 

“Come on, Diego! Five!” Allison reminds him with a raised fist.

He raises his eyebrow at her. He will admit it had worked the first twenty times she’d done it, but now it’s just offensive using Five’s name to energize him. He’s never been a particularly positive person, how he ended up stuck with this lot that apparently has an endless supply of energy, he doesn’t know. Even Vanya, who he had expected to give up, is still at it with Luther.

They had at one point tried their powers at the same time. The rest of the siblings had stepped out of the room to let Vanya and Luther attempt their plan. They’d screamed in victory and when Diego ran in he had expected there to be a hole in the wall, but there was nothing, not even a scratch. The furniture took Vanya’s powers harder than the damn wall. Vanya and Luther had excitedly explained that they had made a dent but it disappeared. Diego thinks maybe they’re just delusional. Nonetheless they continued, eventually trying the floors and the ceilings. When neither worked, they returned to the wall certain they would get somewhere with it. Every so often Vanya would tell them to leave the room and she’d try again. It was quite a frustrating cycle.

“Okay, I have an idea.” Vanya says.

Diego blinks up at her. This has to be the tenth time she’s said those exact words that resulted in nada.

“Yes, Vanya with the plan!” Klaus shouts.

Diego tightly closes his eyes. Damn Klaus and his infinite reservoir of positivity.

* * *

“As we all know, Hargreeves has been tracking the brat ever since the incident in 1963. The problem is, apparently, as soon as the other bastards landed here, he’s been off the radar. The last time he popped up was sometime in March, near the end of their time traveling spree.” Number Six, Titanium, explains as she twirls a blonde strand.

“Do we think he’s dead?” Raven asks, glancing between the group.

“He can turn back time. Absolutely not.” Number Two answers from where he’s lounging on the couch.

Raven glances from Two to Ben.

“So what are we supposed to do?” She questions, folding her arms across her chest.

“Keep a lookout, be prepared for him at any moment. His powers aren’t to be trifled with.” Reginald answers, stepping into the living room, journal in hand.

“Are we just supposed to walk around carrying those handy dandy cuffs all day?” Two asks as he sits up straighter on the couch.

“I can have my darts ready.” Number Seven, The Cube, offers in his mechanical voice.

“As I’ve said many times before, with someone who can spatial jump, we cannot rely on darts.” Reginald reminds sharply, stopping to stand next to Ben who stiffens in response.

“So how do we incapacitate him?” Titanium wonders aloud.

“Have we not been preparing for this threat your entire lives?” Reginald questions, irritated tilt to his tone.

A scene flashes in Ben’s head. A stuffed dog. A small boy. Lots of crying.

“I’ll choke him out like we’ve planned.” Voodoo offers.

Ben blinks back to the present with a shiver. He turns his head, catching Reginald’s suspicious eye.

“Or I could just will him to not use his powers.” Number Four says with a shrug. “I mean there’s seven of us, we’re unbeatable.”

“What have I taught you time and time again?” Reginald questions.

Number Four sighs, forcing herself to face the man.

“To not underestimate his power.” She grumbles.

“This boy opened a wormhole. You’ll do good to remember that. Unless, of course, you’d like to end up asphyxiated on the other side of the galaxy.” Reginald snarls, voice just on the edge of shouting.

The students all look sufficiently unnerved, mouths closed tightly shut. Ben clenches his jaw, studiously looking at the ground.

  
  


* * *

“Am I going insane or have we already tried this plan multiple times?”

“Diego, stop being a Debbie Downer, you’re bringing the whole group down.” Klaus whines.

“All I’m saying is we’ve already knocked on all these doors three times. No one new came out any of those times.” Diego says with a shrug.

“What do you suggest we do then?” Vanya asks, staring down at him with raised eyebrows.

“Do you want us to just lie down and die? Do you think Five would want that?” Luther questions from behind Vanya.

“The next one of you to use Five against me won’t have to worry about lying down to die because I will kill you myself.” Diego snarls through gritted teeth.

“Sheesh.” Luther mumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Dear brother, remember even though you don’t have a life we do and we want to get back to them!” Klaus says, voice half teasing half serious.

Diego glares up at him.

“How do you even know you have those lives anymore?” Diego questions. “Clearly things have changed. I mean if Dad never adopted us then who knows what else changed.”

Their faces all drop. Allison gasps and reaches a hand up to cover her mouth.

“Whoa, guys!” Klaus starts, glancing between his siblings. “Don’t listen to him, he’s trying to bring us down.”

“No, he’s right. What if Claire was never born?” Allison asks, eyes filling with tears.

“You’ll never find out if we don’t get out of here, now will you?” Klaus softly reminds her, setting a hand on her back.

“You’re right. I’m not giving up yet.” Allison says with a shake of her head. She reaches up to swipe her sleeve across her eyes. “Diego get your ass up and help us.”

Diego grumbles but does as he’s told following them out of the room. He can’t help but feel guilty at being the cause of the anxiety on his sister’s face. He hadn’t even considered Claire. If they do get out, will the world they return to even want them back? Will they even want it back? He hopes for his siblings' sakes that things are unchanged, as implausible of an idea as it is. As offended as he had been when they claimed he had no life, he truly hadn’t had much stake in the world they all seem to be clinging to. In fact, he doesn’t even know why most of them are clinging in the first place. Allison makes sense, but the rest of them? Maybe he’d missed whatever had changed in their lives. They had all gone their own ways after Five disappeared, as if they’d never come back together in the first place. Diego would like to claim that it was all their faults, that they’d given up on Five. But the truth is that he’s a lone wolf and he did probably push them away in his pursuit of Five. Either way they deserve to get the chance to go back to whatever it is they are missing and Diego supposes it’s cruel for him to try to drag them down to his own level of despair. 

“Alright, split into the same groups as last time.” Vanya instructs, heading down the hall with Luther.

Klaus trots behind them. Diego nervously glances over at his sister.

“Uh-Allison, I’m sorry.” He says softly, reaching out to touch her arm.

She sets her hand on top of his and sighs. 

“It’s okay, Diego. I guess it’s better to prepare for the worst.” She chuckles self-consciously, her eyes giving away just how terrified she is. “I’ve felt this before, in Dallas, I never thought I’d see her again then. I’m not giving up and I hope you won’t either.”

“I won’t.” He promises.

She smiles at him and they start down the hallway, knocking on doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sparrow Academy: I don't know any of the characters' names or numbers, so those are all made up. The numbers I've given them have no significance. I am using the powers they appear to have in the comics tho.
> 
> Number 1 - The Horror (or as we know, Ben)  
> Number 2 - Laser (a dude who can shoot lasers out of his mouth)  
> Number 3 - Raven (a girl who can summon ravens)  
> Number 4 - Will (a girl with a very similar power to Allison, can will people to do things)  
> Number 5 - Voodoo (a guy who possesses basically voodoo doll powers, if he stabs himself while he has someone's attention they will be the ones stabbed)  
> Number 6 - Titanium (I changed her powers to super strength)  
> Number 7 - The Cube (intelligence, the ability to predict moves, and can morph)


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m just tired of that bastard telling us what to do.”

Ben sighs. They seem to have this conversation every single week. And this time they decided to have it in his room of all places.

“You always say that.” Raven groans.

“He’s been telling us what to do for thirty years, do you really think that’s going to stop now?” Number Four questions.

“I don’t know, I’m just sick of it. I mean we’ve been lectured about Number Five for since before I can even remember. Does he think we can’t handle one child?” Number Two grumbles, flopping down next to Ben on the bed.

“It doesn’t matter, he’ll have his little experiment soon enough and leave us be.” Voodoo says with a shrug. 

“What the hell are we going to do when this is all over? I mean this is what we’ve been training for our entire lives.” Two wonders, fingers playing with a rogue strand on Ben’s comforter.

“What do you mean when this is all over? Catching that kid is the beginning not the end, you know that.” Raven reminds him, glancing at the others to make sure they’re in agreement.

They all nod back at her.

“I know, I’m just exhausted of training and planning. I mean don’t you guys want more out of life?” Two grumbles.

“This is our life, Number Two. We were born for this shit.” Titanium remarks, arms folded across her chest.

“Why does saving the world have to be our responsibility? I don’t give a shit about the world.” Two groans, pulling the thread.

Ben smacks his arm and he drops it, holding his hands up placatingly.

“I don’t know, we have just as many answers as you do.” Raven says, clear annoyance at having to repeat herself every time this conversation comes up.

“I’m aware, I’m just complaining, you know how I am.” Two mumbles, rolling off of the bed.

His limbs flail as he falls to the floor. The group collectively sighs.

“You’re annoying that’s what you are.” Number Four retorts with a roll of her eyes.

“Whatever. Seven’s keeping watch, right?” Two questions, pushing himself off of the ground.

“What else is that thing good for?”

  
  


* * *

“Okay, you guys, I’m not gonna lie, I’m really curious about this room.”

“What room?” Klaus asks, glancing over his shoulder as he knocks on probably his hundredth door.

“Seriously, you’re still on about that?” Vanya questions, sending a judging look her brother’s way.

“Come on, it’s room 666. Maybe we can get out that way.” Luther offers with a shrug.

“You know that’s an evil number right?” Klaus asks, moving onto the next door.

“Exactly what I told him.” Vanya complains.

Luther steps up to the door anyway. 

“Look it’s cracked open.” He whispers, glancing back at his siblings and pointing at the door.

“Luther, a conveniently open door to room 666 sounds like a portal to hell.” Klaus suggests, knocking on door 669 which he chuckles to himself about.

“Whatever, you guys are babies.” Luther gripes.

He slowly pushes the door open, the room is pitch black. He glances back at his siblings and shrugs. He steps into the room. The door slams shut behind him. Bright, yellow eyes stare back at him from deep inside the room. 

“You shouldn’t have.” A sultry voice purrs.

Luther doesn’t even have the chance to mumble an “oops” before he’s dropping through the floor into a bath of darkness. 

* * *

Diego and Allison have barely made any progress. After each door, they wait a full minute before moving on, just in case. 

“Still trying to get out, huh?”

Diego and Allison flinch, finding the man from before standing in the hallway behind them. At the sight of Allison, he starts to lightly chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Diego questions, glancing at his sister.

There’s nothing weird on her face.

“Sorry, uh-your future...it’s just so incredibly lovely.” The man says with a soft smile.

“What do you mean?” Allison asks, stepping towards the man.

“You’re just really happy, there’s a lot of kids.” He answers, laugh lines prominent as he grins.

“Kids?”

“Yeah, they’re everywhere.” He says, throwing his arms out as if to show just how many children.

“Any named Claire?” Allison asks, eyes falling to the floor.

“I don’t know that much, unfortunately. It’s a beautiful future, though.”

Allison nods, rubbing her hand up and down her arm.

“So you can read hers but not mine? Shit, I’m gonna die again, aren’t I?” Diego muses.

“It doesn’t necessarily-”

“Again?!” Allison shouts, nervous look on her face forsaken for pure outrage.

“Uh-I mean...I’m gonna die, aren’t I?” Diego corrects with a fake smile adorning his face.

  
  


* * *

_Luther’s sitting next to Dad under their favorite tree. They’re sitting in the silence, watching the wind blow through the garden. It’s peaceful, the day is temperate and the sun is bright. Soft clouds roll through the sky. Dad turns to Luther, a pensive look on his face. Luther waits for him to speak, aching for him to say he’s proud of him._

_“Are you ready to kill your brother?” He asks instead._

_Luther reels, face scrunching in confusion._

_“What?”_

_“We’ve been planning this for weeks, don’t tell me you’re not ready.” Dad says with a sigh, staring up at the sky._

_“I-I…”_

_“Should have known you’d be a pansy about it. I don’t know why I bother.”_

_Dad stands and starts to walk away. The sky suddenly starts to turn dark. A chill flows through the air._

_“Wait! I-I’ll do it.” Luther says, heart beating in his chest._

_“Well, come along then.”_

_Luther follows his father into the house, up the stairs, and into his brother’s bedroom. Five’s asleep in his bed, face slack. He didn’t even hear them come in. Dad motions to him. Luther watches his brother for a moment, he’s hugging a stuffed animal to his chest. He looks innocent. Luther gulps, glancing at his father. Dad nods sternly, folding his arms across his chest. Luther moves toward his brother until he’s towering over the bed. He reaches down, gently encircling his hand around the small throat. He can feel his brother’s heartbeat. He slowly tightens. Five’s eyes open, he stares in horror. Luther looks up at his father who watches him with a proud smile on his face. Five chokes, reaching up to grasp at his brother’s hand. Luther tightens and tightens until tiny hands stop scratching his arm and fall flat onto the bed._

_“Ah. Good boy, Luther. That’s the son I’m proud to call Number One.”_

Luther gasps awake, heart in his throat, and tears down his face. He wildly looks around the room, he’s still in the darkness. He reaches down, pinching himself hard.

“Calm down, it was a nightmare. I thought a big man like you’d be fun, spiders or something like that. Didn’t expect it to go so dark, Jesus.”

“Who are you?” Luther pants.

The yellow eyes blink through the dark.

“Lana, you’re Luther. You and your siblings have been quite loud, banging on me and my neighbors’ doors.” The woman whispers through the darkness.

“Why are you here?” Luther asks, still attempting to catch his breath.

“Why do you think? I make little boys pee their pants, pretty threatening especially to fragile masculinity.”

“Dad sent you here because you threatened his masculinity?” Luther wonders aloud, inhaling deeply and slowly exhaling.

“Dad? You’re talking about Hargreeves.” Lana hums. 

Luther can imagine her placing a hand on her chin, considering her words.

“Yes, he tried to recruit me into his boy band for a hot minute, until I played a little prank on him.” She chuckles. “He didn’t like that.”

“I’m sure.” Luther mumbles, the picture of his father telling him to kill Five stained into his brain.

“You can leave now, you ruined my fun.” Lana’s voice is low, almost a whine.

“You know anyone in this place who can help us?” Luther asks, despite the woman’s words.

“Help you escape? I’m not sure. If you couldn’t tell, I’m more of the _hibernating_ type, don’t exactly go traversing through this mind fuck.” She says, the sound of her arm swishing through the air.

Luther sighs, hand reaching out to grab the doorknob.

“You find a way out, give a girl a holler.”

“Sure.” He says absentmindedly, opening the door.

He closes it behind himself and his siblings are on him within the second.

“What happened?” Vanya questions, hands roaming his chest checking for invisible injuries.

“We were screaming your name, thought a vampire got you or something!” Klaus shouts, face shoved into his brother’s.

Luther pushes Klaus out of his space. 

“A vampire, Klaus?” Vanya asks, fixing him with her most unimpressed look.

“You never know, there’s some wack powers out there I’m sure!” Klaus defends, pointing to himself as an example.

Vanya sighs, turning back to face Luther again.

“What happened?” She repeats.

“Uh-this woman,” Luther says, pointing behind himself at the door, “She made me have a nightmare.”

* * *

“Diego Hargreeves, tell me what the fuck that means right here right now!” Allison whisper-shouts, stomping her foot on the ground.

“Okay, I did not intend to cause a family argument...I’ll just...” The man says awkwardly, pointing behind himself.

“No, wait! Please. Allison, we can talk later, okay?” Diego begs. Allison glares at him for a moment before curtly nodding. “Can you please tell us if there’s anyone in here who can help us?”

“Hmm, there’s not a lot of us that have the powers you’re looking for.” The man starts, looking up at the ceiling in deep thought. “Eugene, he and his friend claim to have made a dent once.”

“Eugene?” Diego asks in confirmation.

“Yes, his power is heating and cooling and his friend can control sound-waves.” The man describes, mimicking an explosion with his hands.

“That sounds kinda like Vanya’s powers…” Allison whispers to herself.

“I suppose the shifting of the walls and the energy from the sound-waves worked well together. They usually hang out in 407 if you want to try to converse with them. They’re not usually ones for visitors though.”

“Shit, the more the merrier right?” Diego asks, lightly elbowing his sister.

Allison glares at him in return. She drops her glare to plaster a smile on her face and thank the nameless man. The man nods, turning to head back to his room. As soon as the door shuts, Allison roughly grabs her brother’s arm.

“As soon as we’re out of this shit-hole, you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.” She growls into his ear.

“Jesus, ow, okay, Allison!” 

  
  


* * *

“Made you have a nightmare? Luther, you can just say she was ugly.” Klaus says with a shrug.

“She made me imagine killing Five.” Luther bluntly retorts.

Klaus and Vanya both flinch at the words.

“Shit.” Vanya whispers, disturbed.

“Do you want us to fight her?” Klaus offers, throwing his fists up mimicking a boxer.

“No, she was actually kinda cool after the whole nightmare thing.” Luther shrugs. “Apparently Dad tried to recruit her?”

“Damn, was Dad just trying to collect ‘em all?” Klaus teases with a chuckle.

He looks between his siblings, wide smile plastered on his face. 

“Pokemon, anyone?” He adds after no response.

“Anyway, as much as I’m dreading hearing Diego say I-told-you-so, we should finish up and get back.” Vanya suggests.

* * *

Diego and Allison stand in front of room 407. Diego knocks for the second time. Allison rests her head against the door.

“I can definitely hear someone in there.” She says, taking a step back.

The door suddenly opens a crack.

“What do you want?” A deep voice asks, eyes scanning Diego and Allison head to toe.

“Uh-are you Eugene?” Diego questions, trying to look into the room.

The man closes the door even more to the point that it’s barely open at all.

“Yeah, why? Who told you? What do you want?”

“That guy in 502...he said you and your friend made a dent once?” Allison offers with a hopeful smile.

“Yeah, so?” The man grumbles.

“Well, we’re trying to get out and we made a dent once too. We figured if-”

The door suddenly slams in their faces. Allison sighs, leaning against the door again.

“He’s whispering to himself.” She tells Diego, stepping back. 

The door opens all of the way, exposing another man in the room. He looks vaguely familiar with his bright blue inquisitive eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I haven’t forgotten Five, we’ll catch up with him at the Commission next chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: this chapter starts off rather dark.  
> I’ve placed a warning in the end note.
> 
> If at all interested I suggest listening to Asking for a Friend - Stripped by Annabel Jones [ https://youtu.be/HnHlig5eGsc ] before reading. It reminds me a lot of this Five and I feel like it sets the tone for this chapter.

The stench of blood is enough for Lila to know that the sight she’s about to walk into won’t be a pleasant one. That doesn’t stop the gasp from falling from her lips at the disturbing scene in front of her. The floor is painted in dark blood and the table in the middle of the room holds a body. A body that’s more gruesome than any she’d been privy to seeing because of her mother’s work. Despite the puffiness, bruising, and sheer amount of blood, the face is still recognizable. 

“Looks like they treated you to pure torture rather than experimentation this time, huh?” She whispers to the body, stepping to the edge of the table to peer over.

“You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve what my mother put you through either though, did you?” 

She reaches out and gently touches the face, blood wetting her fingertips.

“This was recent wasn’t it? They were probably torturing you for a while, weren’t they? Trying to get you to finally become one of them or maybe trying to get those fancy new powers of yours? But you’ve got that smart mouth, I’m sure that didn’t get you far.”

She pushes the matted hair away from the bruised forehead. 

“You were a good kid. You weren’t like the other people my mother hired. Diego was right, you still had your soul.” 

She tries to keep her eyes on his face instead of his dissected body.

“You learned a neat trick though, didn’t you?”

“Seconds.” She tuts.

“Who’d have thought?”

“I suppose it’s a good thing I got here when I did, although I suppose sooner could have been better.”

“Nonetheless, let’s give your new powers a whirl, little Number Five.” She whispers, stepping away from the table.

She reaches her hands out and pulls. Time reverts slowly before her eyes. His last breaths. His whimpers. His cries for his brother. Them cutting out pieces of him. Him desperately attempting to escape. She has to look away. And suddenly he’s whole again, the room’s empty and he’s paralyzed on the table.

“Who’s in here?” He croaks, eyes wildly attempting to scan the blind spot behind him.

“Take a wild guess.”

  
  


* * *

Luther, Vanya, and Klaus head back to Diego’s room. They all feel disappointed at the lack of progress, even Klaus is lagging behind. Vanya feels especially guilty for getting their hopes up once again. She enters Diego’s room, apologies on the tip of her tongue. She stops short instead, staring wide-eyed at the two new-comers.

“Harlan?!”

  
  


* * *

Five’s body trembles, shaking the metal table.

“Shit, kid, it’s okay. I’m not here to torture you, I’m here to rescue you. Do my penance.” Lila says, moving into Five’s view.

She hums at the way he looks up at her nervously. 

“You recognize me, don’t you?” 

“N-no.” He stutters with a shiver.

“You look smaller. You messed up time travel again, didn’t you?” She asks, scanning his body that’s now back to one piece.

He doesn’t respond.

“That’s okay. Honestly, probably better that you don’t remember me.” She chuckles.

“Anywho, let’s say we get you the hell out of here, huh?”

She reaches out for the cuff around his hand.

“They’re gonna come back.” Five whispers, eyes scanning the room.

The first cuff clicks open.

“Eh, don’t you worry about them.” She says with a wave of her hand, reaching over for his other hand.

“They’ll find me again.” He warns, voice thick with anxiety.

“No, I promise you they won’t.”

He stares at her as she uncuffs his hand. She moves down to remove the cuffs around his ankles. She glances across the table at him, he still looks panicked.

She sighs, stepping over to the front of the table.

“I’ll tell you a secret.” She says, bending down to his level.

“I killed them. Smooshed that fish under my heel. They won’t be back for you.” 

Five’s eyes track her as she stands.

“Believe me or not, it’ll do you no good staying here.” 

When silence is her only response, she moves back down the table, finishing removing the cuffs.

“Alright, can you move at all?” She asks, patting him on the leg.

“No.” Five mutters, attempting to twitch his fingers.

His body refuses to respond to him and his eyes fill with tears at how vulnerable he is.

“Okay, well good thing you’re ridiculously pint-sized.” Lila teases, steadily ignoring looking at his eyes.

She gently slides him off of the table and into her arms.

“Alright, let me grab my handy dandy briefcase and then let’s get you back to Diego before he has a fit, huh?”

She bends, fingers reaching for the briefcase. She maneuvers Five so that one arm is fully around his back while the other holds his legs over her upper arm so she can grasp the briefcase fully in her hand.

“Alright, let’s get you home, you little bugger. Just tell me when and where.”

  
  


* * *

Vanya holds her arms out and Harlan runs to her. They hug tightly as everyone else in the room stares in confusion.

“Harlan? Like the kid from the farm?” Allison questions.

Diego shrugs, watching the scene curiously.

“Hey, he was my friend first!” Eugene yells, stomping over to the pair.

Vanya lets go of Harlan with a watery smile. She glances over at Eugene who’s giving her a scathing look.

“Actually, technically…” Vanya starts with a breathy chuckle. She shakes her head and waves her hand. “Never mind, doesn’t matter.”

“I just never thought I’d see you again.” She says, choking on a cry.

Harlan smiles softly back at her in response.

“Wait if he’s the boy from the farm…” Klaus trails off, sticking his tongue out and using his fingers to count. “He’d have to be like sixty something now?”

“Doesn’t look a day over thirty or forty to me.” Luther remarks with a shrug.

“Not that it’s any of your business, 502 says he arrived around twenty years ago, or at least that’s how many years he thinks probably passed on the outside. You newcomers haven’t been here long enough to know time doesn’t work normal here.”

“God, just when I think Dad couldn’t possibly get more evil, he goes and outdoes himself again.” Klaus mumbles to himself, shaking his head furiously.

Vanya looks each of his siblings in the eyes as she says, “This isn’t just about us anymore, guys. We have to get out, so everyone else wrongly put here can get out too.” 

  
  


* * *

Five had been unsure when his siblings had gotten back on April 2nd, so he asks Lila to drop him on the 3rd instead. Lila accepts his request and opens the briefcase. They disappear with a flash.

Lila and Five land back in April 3rd, 2019 in front of the Umbrella Academy house. Lila sets the briefcase down on the sidewalk, adjusting her hold on Five. 

“Let’s check it out, shall we?” She asks with a nervous tilt to her voice.

“Hope Diego doesn’t kill me.” She whispers to herself.

Five watches her curiously.

She knocks on the door. They wait for a moment. She rubs her hand up and down Five’s arm when he shivers. The door suddenly swings open, a smiling Reginald standing in the doorway. Five whimpers at the sight. His eyes are blown in fear as he desperately attempts to get out of Lila’s arms despite his uncooperative limbs. He begs his body to respond to him, even his head refuses to move.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, glancing down at him.

A second face appears in the doorway, a woman with dark hair.

“You’re going to come into the house, set the boy down, and then come with me.” She whispers with a toothy smile.

Five stares up at Lila in horror as her eyes flash white. Reginald and the woman step out of the way, Lila walking through them into the house. Five screams, begging Lila to turn around. She keeps walking, she lowers Five to the floor. The woman from the door beckons her to follow and Lila does just that, leaving Five alone in the room surrounded by four unfamiliar faces and his father.

“I expected he’d be harder to catch.”

“He looks younger than 19.”

“Aw, he looks like he’s gonna cry.”

He scans each of their faces. He gulps, fingers twitching for his powers. They barely move, the toxin still flowing through his system. 

“Someone go get the cuffs.” Reginald orders.

The blonde woman quickly disappears from the room. Reginald leans down, crouching next to Five. His smile is sharp. He reaches down, grabbing Five’s wrists into one of his hands.

“You couldn’t have made it easier on me, and for that, I thank you.” He says sharply, wicked grin on his face.

Five’s heart beats loudly in his chest. He’d always been a little afraid of the lengths his father would go to teach him a lesson, but this man is marginally scarier. He looks almost on the edge of insanity with the big smile marring his face in a way Five had never seen before. He’s too busy staring at his father’s intense eyes that he doesn’t even know his hands have been forced into cuffs until they click into place.

A resounding _Shit_ rings through his head as he realizes how utterly screwed he is. That fish guy was right, he’d messed something up somehow. The timeline can’t possibly be right. He has no clue what he could have done to destroy it to such a point that their dead father is back, but clearly something happened between him talking to Diego and him ending up surrounded by those assassins. _Diego._ He remembers the last thing they’d been talking about, going back to 2002 together, getting Ben. He wonders where Diego is now, if something equally terrible is happening to him. His mouth opens, ready to beg for his brother’s whereabouts. Before he can mumble a word, a strip of tape is placed across his mouth. 

“I heard enough from you at that dinner to last a lifetime. I won’t be disrespected like that again.” Reginald says, pulling Five up with him as he stands.

Five wishes he knew what the hell he was talking about. Maybe he meant lunch, when he ran away. That would make sense. Reginald hefts him over his shoulder, he can hear the others laughing around him. They couldn’t sound more pleased at the current situation he’s in. A nervous chill rolls down his back at their mercilessness. 

As Reginald heads down a hallway, it clicks for him. He knows exactly where he’s being taken, he’d been there a mere day ago. They enter the elevator. He finally feels his fingers and toes again as the beep rings out when they reach the bottom floor. The doors open and Reginald quickly exits. The sound of his shoes echoes through the basement. Still barely able to move his head, Five is stuck staring at the concrete floor. 

He wonders where the rest of his siblings are. He wonders about a lot of things. How much time was he missing? Where did he and his family time travel from and why? How’d they end up somewhere else when he last remembered being in the house? 

His thoughts are cut off as Reginald roughly slings him off of his shoulder and to the floor. It takes a lot of effort, but Five lulls his head up to take in his surroundings. The panic room that had once been here to handle Vanya has been replaced with something that looks like an upside down bowl. It’s made up of what appears to be extremely thick glass. Reginald catches his eye.

“The walls are impenetrable.”

Clearly his father has gone insane thinking he’s more dangerous than Vanya and needs to be put in some cage. He wishes he could say that, but the tape around his mouth proves difficult to talk through. 

He sees movement in the corner of his eye and slowly twists his head. The girl from before is standing in the corner next to a strange looking device. It’s tall, and there’s a door in the middle of it. There’s exposed wiring everywhere, computational devices all around it.

“Did you send her to the hotel?” Reginald asks as he reaches down to grab Five’s arm.

“Of course I did.” The woman answers, hands on her hips.

“Did you even know if she had powers?” Reginald questions, annoyance crossing his face.

“No, should I have asked?” The woman asks innocently, tone teasing.

Reginald huffs as he pulls Five into the chamber. He drops him on the floor and then quickly leaves, shutting the door behind him. It clicks with a hiss as it locks into place. Five watches as his father argues with the woman. The woman stomps away angrily and Reginald follows behind her. He flicks the light off as he leaves. The room is bathed in darkness. Five curses as he attempts to maneuver himself into a ball on the floor. His body is finally starting to respond to him again, aches returning, especially his hand. It definitely doesn’t appreciate the way it’s been forced into tight cuffs. He sighs as he curls into himself as much as possible. He cries himself to sleep on the cold floor, wishing for Diego or Mr. Pennycrumb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Temporary Main Character Violent Death
> 
> I feel like I’m writing for Supernatural. Killed Diego, brought him back. Killed Five, brought him back. Killed Five again, brought him back again. Clearly someone (me) does not respect death.
> 
> I already had the beginning of this chapter written before I even finished the last story because I am EVIL *said like mermaid man from spongebob*


	6. Chapter 6

The energy in the house is different. Although, Ben supposes it’s been different for a while. He’s caught his teammates having meetings without him multiple times before so this time is no different. But their hushed whispers sound more hysterical as he slinks into the kitchen. They’re at the table, huddled together. Ben clears his throat. They all immediately sit up, turning toward him with wide eyes. 

“Oh...uh Number One. We knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer.” Two says, voice edging on nervous.

He hadn’t gone to sleep and they hadn’t knocked. 

“What are you all doing up so late?” He asks, feigning nonchalance as he heads over to the fridge.

“We’re just celebrating.” Voodoo answers with a sharp smile. 

“Celebrating what?” Ben questions, glancing over his shoulder as he opens the fridge. 

“What do you think, dumbass? We accomplished our life goal!” Two shouts, throwing his arms up. 

His face suddenly turns sour as he corrects, “Or Reginald’s life goal I suppose.”

“Oh, the kid.” Ben muses, turning his attention back to the fridge.

“Yes, the kid. I can’t believe you skipped out, you should have seen his face.” Titanium chuckles.

“He looked like he was gonna cry, it was glorious.” Two agrees.

“Come on, Two, don’t be a total dick.” Number Four chastises, smacking his arm.

Ben hums as he pulls the milk carton out. He closes the fridge with his hip and sets the carton on the counter. He pulls out a cup. The group is silent behind him, he glances over his shoulder. They’re all staring at him. He blinks at them, before turning back to his cup. He starts pouring the milk.

_“Look at my sweet boys. Taking a break from reading, are we?”_

He feels the ghost of a hand in his hair.

_“You should come read with us, Mommy!”_

He can hear a small voice from his side. He turns his head. There’s a little boy with bright green eyes and fluffy hair staring up at him. He flinches, spilling the milk on the counter. He whispers a curse, reaching over for a paper towel. He quickly wipes up the mess and sips from the cup until it’s safe enough to pick up. He shoves the carton back into the fridge. He throws the paper towel away, glancing at his teammates once more. They all smile at him. It’s fake. He smiles back with his teeth. He rolls his eyes as soon as he’s out of the room. The whispering commences. He’s been thinking it for a while, but the thought of those weekly meetings where Number Two bitches and moans pops into his head. They must think they’re smart, that they’re hell of actors. His stomach gurgles, the tentacles begging him to go back and rough them up, force them to tell him what they’re trying so hard to hide. He ignores the feeling, heading back upstairs instead. 

* * *

Luther, Vanya, Harlan, and Eugene are all inside the hotel room while the others sit in the hallway. They watch as Eugene runs from the room, screaming “Go!” A moment passes before it sounds like a bomb went off. Diego flinches, glancing over at Klaus who shrugs. 

“Wait, Harlan!” Vanya’s voice shouts from inside the room.

The man leaves through the door, shaking his head angrily. He heads down the hallway. 

“I knew this was a mistake.” Eugene mumbles, disappointment clear on his face.

He runs after Harlan. Diego’s eyes follow them until they disappear from sight. He sighs, pushing himself up. He holds his hand out for Klaus. His brother slaps his hand away, getting up by himself. Diego raises a brow at Klaus’s suspicious silence. He moves to help Allison up instead and she accepts. He pulls her up to a stand and the three of them head back into the room.

Vanya and Luther are sitting on the floor under the untouched wall. No dent, no hole, no hope. Vanya’s crying and Luther is awkwardly patting her shoulder. Klaus drops to the carpet without a word. Allison and Diego settle on the edge of the bed. The sound of Vanya’s quiet cries are the only thing filling the thickness of the room.

“We-we’re gonna get out, guys.” She says, hiccuping into herself.

Diego glances at her, wishing some sort of comforting words could fall from his mouth but he has none. He wonders if she feels claustrophobic, like being in the panic room. He feels it, like he’s locked in a cage. He lowers his head, staring down at his hands, feeling defenseless. 

“Guess, I got here just in time for the pity party?”

Diego’s head whips up at the sound of a distinctly familiar British accent.

  
  


* * *

Ben stares up at his dark ceiling. He tries to put the now scattered pieces of his life together. Although he considers maybe he should say lives. The thought of an alternate version of himself is unsurprising, he doesn’t discount anything. He’s studied quantum physics, he knows there are many parts of the universe he’s yet to discover. That doesn’t stop the sick feeling in his chest at the memories popping up. Memories of his biggest adversary, memories of the reason why he’s been training every day for the past 30 years, memories of the child that’s currently three floors below him. 

He wonders if the kid is as small as he is in the memories.

_Doesn’t matter, he’s evil._

He wonders if the kid is crying.

_Doesn’t matter, he almost ended the world._

He’s suddenly jolted with another memory. He sees himself running into a room, a room that looks like one of his teammates'. The boy’s on the floor, blood everywhere. There’s a dead body next to him and a knife in his hand. The kid is staring in shock, barely breathing. Ben feels an overwhelming sense of despair at the sight. He watches himself scream the name “Klaus.” The three Umbrella Academy men run into the room looking horrified.

The memory fades as he blinks up at the ceiling. 

_He’s evil. Probably killed that guy in cold blood._

That doesn’t stop the shiver that rolls through his body. 

  
  


* * *

“What the hell are you doing here?” Diego snarls, pushing himself up from the bed. 

“Uh-I can explain...” Lila starts, throwing her hands up and slowly walking further into the room.

Allison glances from Diego to Lila and then back again.

“Is that the-”

“The girl from 1963, yes. The one who turned Five in.” Diego says angrily, glaring at the woman.

“Hold on a second please. Before you do whatever the hell you think you can do to me.” She chuckles momentarily before her face turns serious again. “Have you seen the kid?”

“Five?” Klaus asks from the floor.

At her nod, the room drops 10 degrees. The siblings are all staring at her in shock. Vanya has stopped crying, instead worriedly looking at Diego who’s back has turned rigid.

“Shit.” Lila mumbles, rubbing a hand across her face.

“What do you mean ‘shit’?” Diego questions, voice rough, as he steps up into Lila’s space.

She takes a step back, feeling intimidated by the rage emanating from the man.

“I was with the kid. We got separated.” She softly explains, attempting to de-escalate. 

Based on Diego’s reaction, she realizes she’s better at lighting the fuse rather than blowing it out.

“What the hell are you talking about? What did you do to him?” He growls, backing her up against a wall.

“I didn’t do anything to him.” She says with a huff, pushing his chest. “In fact, I saved his life, so maybe you should show a little gratitude. Then again you were never good at that were you?”

“You’re really trying to bring up _my_ faults right now?” He questions, glancing back at his siblings. They all stare wide-eyed. “Why the hell should we believe you?”

“I saw him dead with my own two eyes, mutilated. If it weren’t for my powers, he’d still be dead and you’d be little brother-less.”

Gasps ring out through the room. Diego steps back, looking winded, as if the air’s been sucked from his lungs.

“What?” His voice comes out as a shaky whisper.

She sighs, pushing herself off of the wall.

“Look, I’m sorry I have to tell you like this Diego, I’d have preferred to not tell you at all. But it’s true, I found him dead. The Commission got to him, snatched him out of the timeline.” She explains, trying and failing to keep the image of dead little Five from her head.

Diego only looks more heartbroken at that, falling against the bed and dropping his head into his hands.

“How do you know all of this?” Allison asks with an unsteady voice, glancing between Diego and Lila.

“I’d been going back to the Commission for...personal reasons. But decided to check up on the runt, girlfriend’s wishes. Used their fancy infinite whatever machine. Imagine my surprise to find out he was at the Commission too.” 

“I’m sorry, I'm gonna pretend I know what you're talking about for a second and backtrack some...you found him dead?” Luther questions.

Lila turns to look at him, just now noticing the two sitting against the wall.

“Yes, I did.” She says with a nod. “Luckily he learned a neat little trick, turn back time by the seconds. So I did and we escaped together.”

“So where is he?” Diego croaks, looking up from his hands with red-rimmed eyes. 

“Well we returned to the Umbrella Academy, April 3rd, expecting to find you lot. This bitch mind controlled me and then I ended up here. Honestly thought he set me up, until I found out you were here and he wasn’t. ”

“Shit.” Klaus grunts, punching the floor as he sits up.

“Why the hell would Dad send all of us here but not Five?” Vanya wonders, voice still wobbly.

“Do you remember anything else?” Diego asks, voice lowered into an almost beg.

Lila turns to him. His eyes are the saddest she’s ever seen. She tries to recollect anything of importance. 

“I remember sitting the kid down and the girl who mind controlled me led me downstairs to this basement of sorts and sent me through this strange door. Woke up here.” Lila explains, wishing she had more to offer.

“Diego…” Allison starts, reaching out a hand.

Diego moves out of her reach.

“Do not tell me to remain calm right now.” He hisses, glaring at his sister.

Lila grits her teeth at that, glancing between the two.

“Well, no worries, you’ve all got a plan to get out right?” She asks, forcing her face into a smile.

Klaus’s dejected eyes meet hers as he says, “Do we look like we have a plan?” 

“You said you came from April 3rd? So we’ve only been in here for like two days at most. Unless we were out longer than we thought.” Vanya hums, face in deep thought.

“Two days and we’ve already exhausted all our options.” Allison adds, trying to force herself to stop staring at Diego’s distressed face.

“Ah, so no plan? Excellent.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert kronk “it’s all coming together” meme*  
> I finally have a full detailed timeline planned out, will I actually follow it? Stay tuned.

_Morning sunlight streams through the windows, bathing the bed in a golden glow. Lila watches as Halle blinks. Her face scrunches up at the onslaught of sunshine. She stretches, blearily blinking._

_“Why are you…” A yawn cuts off her sentence. “staring at me?”_

_Lila smiles softly, reaching out to pull the woman to her into a gentle kiss._

_“This is nice.” She whispers when they break apart._

_“Everything’s nice with you.” Halle says, languidly reaching out a hand to push Lila’s bangs out of her eyes._

_Lila’s face falls to a more serious one._

_“What is it?”_

_“Ah, nothing.” She says, rolling over onto her back._

_She stares up at the ceiling._

_“You remember when we met?” Halle asks, laying onto her side to watch Lila’s face._

_“Babe, of course I do.” Lila answers, glancing over at her girlfriend._

_“You were on that bench, looking so squirrelly. I asked you if something was wrong and you said nothing. But you had that same face you just gave me, like you’d eaten an entire lemon.”_

_Lila remembers that day like it was yesterday. It’d been months since she’d been in 1963. She’d gone back to London, aching for some familiarity. Diego’s words were still rattling around in her brain. There’d been times when she’d questioned having a soul before he’d even insinuated she didn’t. Like the time her mother told her about the 14 year old she’d recruited after killing and threatening his brother. Or the time her mother complained about the same kid refusing to kill the targets. She hadn’t felt anything at the time, just agreed with her mother. It wasn’t like she was the one recruiting children or forcing children to kill people. But then she’d turned that same kid in, handed him over to the FBI, basically sent him to his execution. She used a sweet guy that wanted nothing more than his little brother back, the brother she silently watched turn into a killer. Then she’d threatened Diego’s life after taking his brother from him again. She knows he was right. She doesn’t have a soul._

_She had looked up from her hands, eyes far away. She blinked at the figure in front of her. The most beautiful woman in the world was staring down at her in worry. She asked if she was okay. Of course, Lila had said there was nothing wrong. She expected the woman to leave, but instead she offered to buy her coffee._

_“I don’t know what you mean.” Lila says instead, nervously looking back up at the ceiling._

_“You couldn’t fool me back then and you definitely can’t now. I can tell when you disappear into your own head, you do that a lot, why?”_

“So I broke and told her everything. The Commission. My mother. Everything about you and Five.” She says, motioning to Diego who refuses to look at her.

He’s still sitting on the bed, staring down at his hands. 

“And after I’d finished, you wanna know what she asked? She asked me if the kid was okay. After all the crazy fucked up shit I told her, she wanted to know if he was okay.” 

Lila shakes her head, smiling widely. She bounces on her feet as she continues her story.

“Of course I couldn’t lie to her,” Diego looks up at that with a clenched jaw. “so I promised I’d figure it out. I’d been planning to go to the Commission anyway. When I’d cleaned out my mother’s desk, I kept seeing this number over and over again ‘743.’ I mean I’d spent months before I’d met Halle just trying to figure out what the hell it meant. Figured some Commission idiot could tell me.”

Luther raises his hand.

“Uh-I still don’t know what the Commission is.” He says, glancing at his siblings who nod in agreement.

She looks surprised at that. She’d expected them all to know the intimate details.

“Really? Five didn’t tell you?” She wonders, eyebrows scrunched. “He worked there for five years.”

Diego stands suddenly. The anger in his face has her stepping back quickly, expecting to be punched.

He points at her and says through his teeth, “Shut the fuck up.” 

The rest of the siblings are sufficiently confused, looking between each other trying to figure out what’s written between the lines. Lila suddenly realizes they didn’t know anything, definitely nothing about the killing.

“So that’s where our brother was for five years? Working somewhere?” Klaus questions, tone edging on anger.

“And he couldn’t fucking leave a note or something?” Luther adds bitterly, rolling his eyes.

Steam is practically rolling off of Diego as he clenches and unclenches his fists. Lila’s guilty expression almost sets him off, he wonders if it’s real. If anything between them was ever real.

“I’m sorry, Diego...I didn’t mean…”

She sighs, leaning back against the wall.

“You guys shouldn’t judge your brother so harshly. He can explain it all to you...if he remembers that is.” Lila says, wishing the ground would just swallow her whole.

“What do you mean if he remembers?” Allison asks softly, face still surprisingly open as she tries to put everything in her head together.

“Well, he didn’t remember me and he looked a lot younger. I think he messed up time-travel again.” Lila explains, Five’s dead body flashing through her head.

“How much younger?” Diego questions, eyes roaming her face, trying to detect if she’s playing him again.

“I don’t know, thirteen or fourteen maybe?” She offers, attempting to mimic Allison’s open expression.

Diego drops to the ground, tears finally falling. He rips at his hair, pulling it tightly. The situation just gets worse and worse by the minute. His little brother is probably so incredibly confused and scared and he’s letting him down again. He’s stuck here in some stupid fucking hotel while his brother is out there with his abuser.

“I-I know this situation isn’t ideal but just let me finish my story so you guys have all the details.” Lila says softly, avoiding looking at Diego.

When no one opposes, she starts her story back at the Commission.

_“Hey, you, gerbil man!”_

_Herb turns, pointing as himself as he glances around._

_“Yes, you. Come here.” Lila demands, using her finger to beckon him._

_“What can I help you with Lila?” He asks, stopping a few steps in front of her._

_“The number 743. Do you know anything about it?” She questions._

_He shrugs._

_“It sounds like a case number.”_

_“A case number?” She repeats, testing the words._

_“Yeah, I could check the file room.” He offers._

_“Take me there.”_

_The man stares for a moment before awkwardly nodding and turning around to lead her through the building. Down in the basement, he opens the door to the file room. Lila moves to walk into it, but he grabs her arm. She stares down at his hand in annoyance._

_“Uh-sorry, it’s just only certain employees are allowed in the file room. I’ll-uh-I’ll get the file for you, if you could...if you don’t mind waiting here.”_

_Lila rolls her eyes, stepping back out of the room and leaning herself against the wall next to the door. Herb smiles before entering the room and shutting the door behind himself. Lila sighs, picking at her nails._

_Almost twenty minutes later, the man exits the room, face pale white and sweaty. His hands shake with the paper._

_“Well?” She asks, eyebrows raised._

_“Uh-I’m not sure that you want to read this…”_

_She snatches the paper from his hands. She scans the page. Her heart clenches in her chest and she drops to the floor. The paper crumples in her hand as she pulls it to her chest. She cries softly. Herb gently pats her head. She glares up at him. He swiftly retracts his hand, whispers an apology, and then quickly leaves._

“A.J. Carmicheal killed my parents. The same man who’d kidnapped your brother. Although I didn’t know it at the time.”

_The sadness passes, replaced with a white hot anger. A.J. Carmichael killed her parents. He’s the reason she’s the way she is. That bastard’s going to pay. Suddenly she remembers her mother telling her where their little board meeting was going to be. The damned fish had no clue she knew exactly where he’d be, him and his whole evil gang. She smiles wickedly, pulling herself up from the ground._

_Time to visit the briefcase room. She thinks, pulling for Five’s powers. She spatial jumps in and out of the room without being detected, briefcase now in her possession. She wastes no time in opening it._

_She lands in Wisconsin, 1982 in front of an inn. She heads inside, eyes scanning the strange decor. She asks an employee for directions. She feels sweet, sweet adrenaline as she heads down an empty hallway. She stops in front of the doors with a “Muskellunge Banquet Room” sign above them. She stretches her neck as she sets the briefcase down. She reaches out, stretching her fingers next. She steps into the room. The board members and A.J. all look up at her._

_“What the hell are you doing here?” A.J. questions, fish swimming nervously._

_She smiles with all of her teeth._

_“I heard a rumor your heads all exploded.”_

_She quickly spatial jumps outside of the doors, she wants to keep her clothes clean. The room explodes into a cacophony of disturbing sounds. A.J. falls backwards out of his chair in horror as blood and brains fly through the room. Lila guesses A.J. bypasses the rumor, is it because his head is a tank? Or because he’s a fish? She realizes with satisfaction that it doesn’t matter. She smirks as she stalks toward the man, carelessly stepping over the bodies. She reaches up, ripping a decorative paddle off of the wall._

_“Wait, please, do you want money? I can get you money. Please.” A.J. begs, hands up in defense._

_“I want my parents back.” Lila says simply._

_Before A.J. can grovel, she slams the paddle down onto the glass. It shatters, the water sloshing out, and the fish is sent flying. It lands on the floor, flopping around the glass. Its mouth opens and closes, choking on air._

_“You’re never going to hurt anyone again.”_

_With that, Lila sets her boot on top of the fish gently. She stomps her heel. A.J. crunches underneath her shoe. She steps away, rubbing the mess off of the bottom of her boot and onto the floor. She drops the paddle and heads out of the room that’s now bathed in a coat of blood and brains._

_She picks up the briefcase again._

_“Well that was easy. I told mother she should have just sent me.”_

_She shrugs, opening her briefcase. She lands in the Infinite Switchboard Room. The worker in the room flinches in their chair._

_“I heard a rumor you tell me where Number Five is right now.” She says quickly._

_She doesn’t have much time before the board’s murders get back to the Commission._

_“Number Five is in Experimentation Room 47.” The man answers robotically._

_“What?” She questions, voice high pitched with surprise._

_“Number Five is in Experimentation Room 47.” The man repeats without blinking._

_“Huh...alright, well that is convenient.”_

“And then, well, you know the rest.”

The siblings all stare at her. Luther in pure disgust, Klaus in pure awe, and Allison and Vanya somewhere in the middle. She looks at Diego next, he just looks pissed and depressed. Like someone ran over his dog.

“What’s wrong with you now?” She asks in exasperation.

“Was anything ever real between us?” He questions, distrust clouding his eyes.

“That’s what you got out of all of that?”

At no response, she sighs, folding her arms across her chest.

“I’m sorry, Diego. I was using you.” She says simply. “I don’t expect you to forgive me or to understand. I did like you, I mean that’s why I couldn’t kill you or your little brother.” 

“Glad to hear it.” He grumbles sarcastically.

“I know it doesn’t mean much but Diego, you weren’t the easiest person to be around. I was being honest when I said you were constantly ‘Five this’ or ‘Five that.’ I couldn’t get a word in edgewise without you bringing him up. I’m sure you’re great when he’s around, but I couldn’t handle you when he wasn’t and when you weren’t getting along.” She says, although she knows it doesn’t mean much considering she’d been playing him the whole time anyway. 

Maybe it’s an attempt to make herself feel better. It doesn’t work.

“Glad we’re discussing this in front of my entire family.” He chuckles mirthlessly.

“Look, you love the kid, I won’t fault you for that. But if you’re going to be playing the role of daddy, maybe that should be your focus for a while.” She offers, despite the voice in her head telling her to shut up.

“Cool, the woman who lied to my face for months, endangered my brother, and threatened my life is now lecturing me.” Diego retorts, lips forming a deep scowl.

“Shit, he has a point.” Klaus agrees, looking between the two.

“You’re right, not my place. I apologize. I want the kid to be safe too, that’s it. The rest doesn’t matter.” She says, waving her hand through the air.

Diego doesn’t respond and neither does anyone else. The room is deadly silent, air thick with anger and distrust and confusion.

* * *

Five wakes to the sound of a door opening. He moans at the pain in his back as he pushes himself up to a seated position. Reginald is standing in the doorway of the chamber, staring down at him. Five wishes he could push the bangs out of his eyes. He wishes he could do anything to feel less exposed. He shivers at the vulnerability of his position. He twitches his fingers, suddenly remembering his body is functioning again.

“I wouldn’t.” Reginald warns.

Five ignores him, immediately pulling for his powers. A strong, electric shock floods his system. He cries out, falling back onto the concrete. A fresh wave of pain tingling down his spine.

“Stubbornness will get you nowhere.”

Five blinks up at his father, body trembling. The man crouches in front of him. He reaches out, swiftly pulling the tape off of Five’s face. The boy winces at the sharp pain. 

“You will not speak until I tell you to, understood?” 

Five spits at him. Reginald ignores the action, nonchalantly pulling up the collar of his shirt to wipe his face clean. Once he deems the job done, he fixes his shirt back into place.

“You’re going to tell me how you produced that wormhole.” He demands, voice even and unaffected.

“Fuck you.” Five snarls.

Reginald’s face remains blank for a moment longer. Five doesn’t even see the backhand coming. His face whips to the side sharply. 

“The biggest mistake of my life will always be adopting you.” 

As much as Five abhors his father, the words still sting sharper than any slap ever could. The man stands, leaving the room. The door slams shut behind him. Reginald leaves down the hallway, shutting the light off again.

Tears fill Five’s eyes as he rubs his face against his shoulder, attempting to calm the ache on his cheek. His stomach growls, his lips are chapped, and his hand really hurts. He just wants to go home, but he doesn’t even know where home is anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the most fleshed out romantic relationship of this entire series Lila and a random woman? Yes. Why did I choose to give Lila a girlfriend? No idea, it just felt right. Sorry if you guys wanted Diego x Lila I just personally don’t like it. 
> 
> I am also sorry if you guys don’t like OCs I know I don’t so hopefully I’ve kept them minimal enough that you guys aren’t like GET THESE RANDOS OUT OF HERE bc honestly that would be valid.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning placed in the end note.

“Now that I’ve officially ruined the mood,” Lila starts, breaking the awkward silence. “Can someone please inform me what you’ve all tried so far?”

“Eh, the mood was already ruined before you got here, you only made it a little worse.” Klaus says with a wave of his hand.

“We’ve tried breaking through the walls. Tried finding other people with powers to help us. Neither worked.” Vanya mumbles, staring down at her hands.

“So powers work here?” Lila hums.

She quickly attempts spatially jumping across the room. She appears in front of Luther and Vanya. She laughs to herself.

“Looks like your little brother might end up being the one to save us.” She says with a smile, pulling for the powers again. “Now let me see what’s outside of this place.”

She disappears from the room with a poof of blue. She reappears less than a second later, falling to the floor. She clutches at her chest, panting. Allison drops to the floor next to her, hands hovering.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, voice raised in concern as she scans the woman’s body for injuries.

“I a-almost fu-fucking died!” Lila chokes out between heavy breaths.

She looks up at Allison, pupils blown.

“We aren’t on Earth.”

  
  


* * *

Five’s alone for hours, numbers running rampant through his head. He tries his damnedest to keep his mind on the numbers and only the numbers. It doesn’t matter how he got here. Doesn’t matter what he’s missed. All that matters is figuring out how to get out and how to find his family. At least, he’s assuming his family is still alive in this timeline. Funny, he’d thought he was in an alternate timeline before and had been wrong and now here he is, clearly without a doubt in one. Ah, the universe sure is magnificent at finding new ways to torture him. He quickly pushes that thought aside, he doesn’t have time for another emotional breakdown. 

_Numbers._ He reminds himself, closing his eyes tightly and focusing. 

His mind slowly tricks him into dawdling again. _Wormholes._ Dolores reminds him. Or shit, Dolores isn’t here. He blinks his eyes open at that. _What the hell’s wrong with me?_ He asks himself, shaking his head trying to clear the distractions.

 _Wormholes._ His head reminds him again. 

“What about them?” He mumbles to himself aloud.

_Dad put you in here because he’s scared of what you can do. Can you imagine the sheer amount of energy you’d need to create something like a wormhole?_

“A lot.” He whispers.

_Right. So maybe that’s how we get out._

“I don’t even know how to produce one. And like you said it’d probably require a lot of energy, energy I don’t have.” Five sighs, rolling his neck from side to side.

_What was the point of reading books if you refuse to apply the concepts?_

“Wormholes...they’re just theoretical.” He says with a shrug.

_Clearly not. Time travel is just “theoretical” too. Are you being purposefully obtuse?_

“Of course not.” He denies furiously, offense tinged in his words. “I want out just as much as you. My family could be in danger.”

_Our family._

“You’re me idiot.” He retorts, rolling his eyes.

_You just called yourself an idiot so clearly you’re the idiot._

He snorts, shaking his head.

“I think you’re the one being purposefully obtuse, forcing me to think about other things.” 

_If you think about the things you shouldn’t be thinking about, you’ll short circuit. I know it, you know it. You need to think about getting out, that’s it. Now’s not the time._

“I know, I know. You always say that.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Five’s head jerks up. Ben is standing in the doorway with a plate. He hadn’t even heard the door open, hadn’t noticed the lights turned on. But that doesn’t matter because Ben is alive and standing in the doorway.

Five utters his brother’s name in shock. It takes him a moment and a hand ache later, but he pushes himself up from the floor. There are tears in his eyes as he starts toward his brother. Ben pushes him back harshly with his free hand. Five lands back on the ground, staring up in confusion.

“Ben?”

“Don’t call me that, it’s not my name.” Ben says with a huff.

Five blinks up at him, mind running wild with this new information that Ben’s here and _alive._ The timeline can’t possibly be _all_ wrong if Ben is alive.

“What-what do you mean?” He asks tentatively, elbows aching from where they caught him as he fell.

“I’m not your brother.” Ben states bluntly.

He looks everywhere but Five’s face.

“What?”

Ben sighs, rolling his eyes.

“I’m bringing you food, that’s it.” He says sharply. “Figured Hargreeves would be dumb enough to accidentally let you starve to death.”

“You mean Dad?” Five questions, pushing himself up so that the weight is no longer on his arms.

“No, I don’t.” Ben corrects, eyeing Five to make sure he understands that Ben means what he says.

Five shakes his head, eyebrows scrunched as a million questions race through his head.

“I don’t understand...how are you alive? What changed the timeline?”

“You and your idiotic siblings did.” Ben says, voice venomous with accusation.

“Do you know where they are?” Five asks softly, ignoring Ben’s bitter words.

“Yes, but I’m not telling you.” Ben replies with a shrug.

“So they’re alive.” Five whispers, letting out a deep breath and thanking the world for at least granting him this small mercy.

Ben doesn’t respond. The blank face he’s attempting to convey is enough for Five to be certain his siblings are alive. Ben had always been the worst liar. He smiles softly, the knowledge that they’re still alive somewhere is all Five needs to get through whatever is bound to happen to him.

“Do you want this shit or not?” Ben questions angrily, annoyed at being caught. 

Five’s eyes catch on the plate. His stomach gurgles at the thought of food. Of course this is nothing like the apocalypse, nothing can ever compare. And yet, the hunger is a slight hindrance. Maybe he’d stop arguing with his own mind if he wasn’t trying so hard to not think about food and water and apocalypses.

“Yes, please.” He finally says, licking his lips.

Ben leans down and Five reaches out with his hands. At the last second, Ben pulls it back, arching a brow.

“I want to know why you killed that guy first.”

Five sighs, dropping his cuffed hands back down to the floor.

“What guy?” He asks, voice low in exhaustion.

“I saw a memory. You were on the floor covered in blood with a knife in your hand. The guy was dead next to you, looked like you slashed his neck.”

Five’s eyes go cloudy and his face falls. The ache in his hand grows as if it’d just been stomped on again. He feels his chest rise and fall sharply.

“Why did you-”

Ben’s voice fades as all Five sees and feels is Harold on top of him and then Theo. Their blood falling like a waterfall onto his face, into his mouth, as he stabbed them. The heaviness of their bodies and the weakness of his own. 

“Hey what is this? What’s wrong with you?”

He belatedly hears the plate clink on the floor. He hears Diego’s voice somewhere in the distance reminding him it’s going to be okay, to just breathe. Breathe. He counts to ten in between breaths and tightens his aching hand into a fist. The pain reminds him he’s real and he’s still alive. His eyes are screwed tightly closed as tears trail down his face. The panic travels down his body in the form of a tremble. 

He opens his eyes and Ben’s face is directly in front of his, staring at him in open confusion. Five twists his head away, wiping his tears onto the shoulder of his shirt. He looks up at the sound of the door shutting. Ben’s walking away down the hall in quick steps, hands twitching at his sides.

_Why do I even try? Clearly you enjoy thinking about awful things._

Five sighs shakily. He pushes himself across the floor until he’s next to the plate. He picks the sandwich up with shaking hands. Not marshmallow and peanut butter, but it’ll do. 

  
  


* * *

After the shock of finding out that they are in fact on the Moon and not on Earth and after Luther haphazardly put together inane reasons why, the depressed feeling of the room rose to an almost unbearable level. Lila is asleep on the bed, exhausted from almost suffocating to death. Allison and Diego are now sitting on the floor, leaning against the edge of the mattress. The room is silent for a long time until Vanya decides to finally break it.

“So now we actually have officially tried everything.” She says with a humorless chuckle.

Diego opens his eyes, waking himself from the sleep that had been seconds away from claiming him.

“You know, I’m thinking while we sit here waiting for Fivey to inevitably save our asses again, we should get to know each other.” Klaus offers, stretching like a cat across the carpet.

“Uh-are we not siblings?” Luther questions, a loud yawn following his words.

“Name five things you know about me that aren’t about my powers, drug addiction, or Ben.” 

The room is back to silence. Klaus purses his lips, looking between his siblings.

“That’s what I thought.” He says when it’s obvious no one has anything.

“This isn’t time for games. We have no clue what’s happening to Five right now.” Diego grumbles.

“Yes and we have no way of getting out, so we might as well do something that will help him later down the road.” Klaus offers, twisting on the floor to crack his back.

Diego grimaces at the pop resounding through the room.

“What are you talking about?” He asks, curious despite himself.

“Look Diego, we’re not idiots. We know your little father-son duo has been hiding things.” Everyone is suddenly wide awake at Klaus’s accusation. “That kid’s been through some serious shit, I can see it in his eyes and I can see it in yours when you look at him. The least we can do right now is try to be an actual family for him. Good role models?” 

The siblings all make small sounds of agreement.

“And that starts with you explaining what’s been going on.” Allison adds, fixing her brother with a severe look.

Diego gulps, glancing between his siblings nervously.

“You don’t have to tell us the gory details. But I want to know about what you said earlier and I want to know where Five was for those years he was gone.” Allison specifies, tone suddenly much softer and face open with understanding.

“I...I can’t do that to him.” Diego whispers, fiddling with his hands in his lap.

“Look, you’re not betraying him for telling us. You’re helping us to better understand and help him. If we don’t know why he’s hurting we can’t help.” Vanya explains.

She scoots across the floor until she’s sitting closer to Diego and Allison. Luther follows suit behind her. 

“And don’t worry about us stealing your spot, I’m sure you’ll always be Dad Diego to him.” Klaus says with a snort as he pushes himself up to a seated position. 

He smiles softly and turns serious as he continues with, “You two are always gonna have that special bond, but give us the chance to be better siblings. To make up for the shit we’ve done.” 

Diego hadn’t thought of it like that. There’s not much left to consider after an admission like that. They just want to help, of course that’s what they want. He nods and whispers an “okay.”

* * *

The sound of the door scraping open wakes Five from his fitful sleep. Reginald’s back, this time with the same woman who’d been there when Lila had opened the door. The woman who could mind control people just like Allison. She looks slightly guilty, Five tries to remember that. Files it away as something he can maybe use later. 

Five’s suddenly thankful he’d left the plate in the corner, maybe Reginald wouldn’t notice. He’s not sure what would happen if he did.

“I’ve decided to grant you one final chance to cooperate, Number Five. This is far more than you deserve.”

Five just stares up at his father with a challenging look. As if begging his father to give him his best shot. Probably isn’t one of his best ideas. _Most of your ideas aren’t great._ He can’t help but agree with his subconscious on that. Reginald smiles at him as if he’d expected nothing less. He turns to the woman and motions with his hand to Five.

The woman steps into the room, eyes flickering across Five’s face. She gulps, eyes finally settling on his.

“You will trust Reginald Hargreeves unconditionally and will obey him without question.”

A white cloud washes over Five’s eyes. It’s gone just as suddenly as it had appeared. 

“Okay, Number Four, you may leave. I’d like to have a chat with my son. _”_

  
  


* * *

“I’m sorry I’m not trying to be difficult, I know this is like my millionth question but...they altered his DNA?” Luther questions.

“Yes.” Diego says simply, forcing himself to not get frustrated at the barrage of questions.

He remembers he’d had the same ones running through his head when he’d first found out too.

“How is that possible?” Allison wonders, scratching her head as she contemplates what exactly altering a human being’s DNA would look like.

“I don’t know. All I know is that he had no choice, none of it was his fault.” Diego repeats, he had said the same thing before he’d even started to tell them everything. 

Well, everything except the bastard from the apocalypse who he steadily avoided mentioning. 

“Clearly, how could this have possibly been his fault?” Klaus questions, rubbing his face roughly with his hands.

“They killed you for fuck’s sake.” Vanya cries in a high pitch, shaking her head in anger.

“God, now I feel even more terrible about those memories.” Allison mumbles, memories of little Five flashing through her head. “I mean all this shit he’s just been carrying around. I-I don’t know how he’s even still functional, I wouldn’t have survived a day in an apocalypse much less those five years of pure torture he had to have gone through.” 

“We are gonna have to work really fucking hard to make up for all this shit.” Luther says, rubbing the unshed tears from his eyes. “Especially me.”

“That starts with a beautiful family sharing circle, everyone fess up all their lives’ juiciest details. I wanna hear it all.” Klaus jokes, although it falls flat with the sad intonation still clear in his voice.

“You all know what I was doing the whole time so skip me.” Diego says with a wave of his hand.

“Uh-I can start.” Vanya offers, nervously glancing between her siblings. They all offer the best smiles they can handle. She nods back at them and continues with, “I gave up my first chair for uh...for obvious reasons. Before you know, we were taken to the past, I was teaching violin at the high school down the road and then in my spare time I was volunteering at a cat cafe.”

“A cat cafe?” Diego questions.

“Yes, Diego, get with the times.” Klaus says with an exaggerated sigh. “You go pet cats, buy coffee, a great time altogether.” 

“That sounds beautiful, Vanya.” Allison validates with a gentle smile.

“Thanks.” Vanya whispers bashfully, face turning red at the attention.

“I too worked at a cat cafe.” Klaus says suddenly.

At his siblings' unimpressed faces, he waves his hands through the air.

“Fine, just kidding. You guys are no fun,” He complains, flopping forward onto the floor. “I spent most of my time at rehab, Ben kept nagging me about it, figured I’d see what all the fuss was about. After that I realized to survive in this capitalist nightmare I'd have to procure a job. Ridiculous I know. Anyway, ended up being one of those ridiculous people that pretend to communicate with the dead to steal money from the vulnerable. Except, I wasn’t pretending because I’m amazing.”

He waves his feet through the air and runs his hands across the carpet. 

“Anywho that led me to meeting the sexiest man alive and we had some slutty slutty weeks together.”

The family groans in unison. Klaus chuckles rolling over onto his stomach to watch their faces.

“But then we actually started dating. Lasted way longer than I thought I was capable of. Ben actually liked him, believe it or not.”

His face turns morose at the thought of Ben. 

“I’m really happy for you, Klaus.” Luther says softly, attempting to clear the air before it turns depressing again.

“What about you?” Vanya asks, knocking her shoulder against Luther’s.

“Ah, well I met someone too, at my work.” He explains. “I was a bodyguard for you know, like famous people. She is...or I guess was a singer. We’d just moved in together.”

“Damn, I’m sorry Luther. Maybe nothing’s changed?” Klaus offers, although his own face gives away how hopeless he really feels.

Luther shrugs, looking down at his hands. The rest of the siblings all finally turn to Allison awaiting her story. She looks away from Luther, catching their eyes. She clears her throat.

“Well, I...I finally worked some things out with Patrick. He actually let me start seeing Claire again...I really was just focusing on her for awhile.” 

She glances at Diego.

“I guess we’re the same in that way.” She whispers, reaching over to grab her brother’s hand.

“I guess we are.” He agrees softly, lacing their fingers together.

“You guyyyyyss.” Klaus whines, getting up from the floor.

“Let’s bring it in. Family hug!”

They all scoot across the floor until they’re in a tight circle. They crash against each other, gripping each other tightly.

“Why aren’t we like this more often?” Vanya mumbles into Diego’s shoulder.

“You know, I think Five brings us together. We only came back together when he’d shown up again and then in 1963 he brought us together again.” Luther says, cheek resting against the top of Klaus’s head.

“He’s the heart of this messed up little family,” Klaus chuckles, a tear slipping down his face.

“And we’re going to get him back.” Diego promises, tightening his hold on his siblings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Panic Attack, very slight mention of past non-con starting at "Why did you-" and ending at "Hey what is this? What's wrong with you?"
> 
> Lila's gonna wake up and be like "wtf did i miss"


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, there seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding Five's age and his memories so I just wanted to give you a little refresher of a scene from Chapter 5 that should help you gauge where his psyche currently is at: 
> 
> "A resounding Shit rings through his head as he realizes how utterly screwed he is. That fish guy was right, he’d messed something up somehow. The timeline can’t possibly be right. He has no clue what he could have done to destroy it to such a point that their dead father is back, but clearly something happened between him talking to Diego and him ending up surrounded by those assassins. Diego. He remembers the last thing they’d been talking about, going back to 2002 together, getting Ben. He wonders where Diego is now, if something equally terrible is happening to him. His mouth opens, ready to beg for his brother’s whereabouts. Before he can mumble a word, a strip of tape is placed across his mouth. "
> 
> No worries if you guys missed this, it was definitely a small snippet so I totally understand accidentally missing it or forgetting it. If this still didn't clear anything up for you, don't worry because this will definitely be brought up again, probably multiple times!

Reginald had allowed Five to use the bathroom and drink a glass of water. He’d been given a moment of respite from the cuffs and had massaged his left hand for as long as he was permitted. It still aches deeply, but at least he had a moment without the sharp pressure around it. So now, even though he’s back downstairs in the chamber, cuffs firmly around his wrists again, he feels marginally better. And something about his father’s presence feels vaguely less intimidating. For some reason, he feels almost safe.

“Number Five, how old are you?” His father asks, taking a seat on the floor in front of Five.

He pulls his suit lapels back into place and dusts his shoulders.

“Fourteen.” Five answers, cuffed hands resting in his lap.

“How old were you when we last saw each other?” Reginald questions, reaching into his suit pocket and pulling out his monocle.

“Thirteen.” Five says, a reel of him running straight into the apocalypse flashing through his mind.

Reginald quirks his head as he places the monocle over his eye.

“That cannot be possible. What do you remember before you and your siblings time traveled back here?” 

“Diego and I were on the couch upstairs.” Five’s cuffs clink as he points to the ceiling. “I’d made calculations to get back to 2002 so we were gonna go.”

“Why?” His father wonders, reaching a hand back into his suit.

“I wanted to save Ben.” Five says simply, dropping his hands back to his lap.

“Ben? You mean my Number One?” Reginald corrects, pulling his journal out.

Five stares at the book. The malicious little thing that held all of his vulnerabilities in it once upon a time.

“I...I.”

“The one who brought you a sandwich earlier.” The man clarifies, a quirk of his brow.

Five vaguely thinks maybe he should be intimidated by the tone.

“Yes, that’s Ben.” 

Reginald reaches into his suit once again, this time pulling a pen out.

“Why save him?” He asks, flipping to a page in his book.

Five sits up, curious at what lies on the page. Reginald glares up at him, shutting the book with his finger in between the pages. Five sits back down guiltily. 

“Cause he died and he’s my brother.” He finally says, although his mind is still wondering what his father could be writing about.

He trusts it can’t be anything bad, but that doesn’t make the curiosity dwindle.

“How’d he die?” Reginald questions, opening his book back up once he deems Five too far to see the words.

“I don’t know. Didn’t ask.” Five answers, Vanya’s book flashing through his mind.

_Vanya’s book. The one that revealed to you that your father brainwashed your siblings into forgetting you._ Five ignores that, Dad’s different now somehow. 

“Doesn’t matter, we’re getting off topic.” Reginald says with a flourish of his hand. “I’d like you to tell me everything about your wormholes. More specifically if they possess the ability to transport one to an alternate universe.” 

“An alternate universe?”

“Yes, I suppose akin to the one you find yourself in now. Different branches of the universe.” Reginald explains, glancing up from his notes to Five’s face.

“I know what they are,” Five says softly. “but why would you want to know about them?”

“Are you defying me?” Reginald questions, dropping the pen from his hand.

“No, of course not!” Five quickly backtracks. “I-I was just curious.”

Reginald’s tone turns sharp as he demands, “Answer the question. How did you make the wormhole?”

“I’ve never made one, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Five answers, guilt churning in his stomach at his father’s indignant face.

“Attempt to perform a spatial jump right now.”

Five pulls for his powers without hesitation. He’s immediately shocked by the cuffs, crying out.

“You aren’t lying, congratulations.” Reginald scowls. “However, I refuse to believe I spent all those years biding my time waiting for you, just for you to disappoint me again.”

“I-I’m sorry.” Five whispers, hanging his head.

“I don’t want to hear I’m sorry.” Reginald retorts, slamming his journal onto the floor. Five flinches, glancing back up at the man as he continues to speak. “I want you to tell me how someone as useless as yourself managed to create a wormhole.”

“I-I don’t know.” Five mumbles, mind searching for any kind of information regarding wormholes. He remembers the book he’d read and quickly adds, “It would require a very large energy source, I’d probably need some sort of conduit.”

“What sort of conduit?”

“Uh- some kind of power source to strengthen my energy threshold, potentially electricity.” Five offers softly.

His mind shouts at him, cursing him out for giving away the information. He doesn’t know what the problem is, it’s obvious he can trust his father. What kind of dad would hurt their child?

His brain goes silent, but he can feel its exasperation as his stomach twists despite himself.

  
  


* * *

Ben paces his bedroom floor, feeling guilty for some reason he cannot comprehend. There’s a sickness in his stomach, begging him to go back down and apologize to the kid. But then his head reminds him the kid is evil, he doesn’t deserve apologies. The panicked face flashes through Ben’s mind. An evil person doesn’t look like that, do they? They surely don’t have panic attacks. Or was it all manipulation? A fake panic attack to garner sympathy so he’d screw up and let him go? He chuckles at that. The kid’s an idiot if he thinks Sparrow Academy’s Number One would screw up like that. But then again the power is in the child’s hands right now, he knows things about Ben that Ben isn’t even sure he himself knows. Which, frankly, is terrifying. 

He stops pacing as the realization hits him that he’s an unknown variable. Reginald knows he could potentially get memories back. He must know that Ben wouldn’t tell him everything. He’s likely biding his time, just waiting for Ben to fuck up. Just waiting for a reason to put him down. Would he really kill him so easily after trying to keep them together for so long? But then again, he’d kept them together just to stop the Umbrella Academy and catch Number Five. What’s stopping him from killing him off now? Except for the fact that he’s a powerless man and Ben’s well...a powerhouse if he says so himself. But the Cube. He always forgets about that thing. He wonders where the hell it even is right now. Probably watching them, collecting information and passing it on to Hargreeves. What if it saw him in the basement? What if it could tell he was remembering things?

He takes a deep breath, realizing he’s working himself into a panic. The kid’s getting to him, this is exactly what he wanted. For Ben to send himself into a panic and fuck up. Well he refuses to give in so easily. He’s strong and no one, no matter how powerful they may be, can outsmart him.

  
  


* * *

Reginald had left to get something minutes ago. Five stares at the open doorway. His subconscious is prodding at him, telling him to get up and to walk out, to run away as fast as he can. He stays firmly planted instead. His father had told him to stay and he trusts him, despite his brain constantly trying to supply him with reasons not to. His mind doesn’t know what it’s talking about anyway, it’s always trying to argue with him so why should this time be any different?

Five watches as the elevator doors open and Reginald steps out. He now has something in his hand, some sort of small device. The closer he gets, the more of the item Five’s able to see. He finds himself scrambling across the floor, terror hitting him all at once. He knows too well what the object is, knows how many times it’s been used against him, to threaten him, to turn him defenseless. He pushes himself across the floor until his back hits a glass wall. Reginald steps into the room, looking curiously between Five and the taser.

“Come here.” He orders, pointing down at the floor in front of his feet.

Despite his mind’s pleas, Five pushes himself to a stand and walks until he’s standing directly in front of his father. 

"Your speculation has its fallacies. Currently, electricity is being used to prevent your powers. However, there is merit in a higher voltage potentially fielding varying results. I am going to remove your cuffs, you are not going to try to run."

Five nods, holding his hands out. Reginald places the taser under his arm and reaches out, removing the cuffs. He tosses them to the floor, the sound making Five flinch.

“This can reach far higher voltages than they can. Take it.” Reginald directs, holding the taser out.

Five accepts the object with trembling hands. He doesn’t know why the taser scares him more than the cuffs, they’re practically the same thing. Meant to electrocute him. And yet, all he can see is Harold’s face smiling down at him, taser in hand. Five suddenly notices something out of the corner of his eye, someone hiding behind the strange door machine in the corner. He recognizes it as one of the men who’d made fun of him when he’d first been brought into the house. His face is forced forward by Reginald’s hand under his chin.

“Listen to me carefully, Number Five. When I step out of this room and shut the door, you are going to take this taser and you are going to use it on yourself until you figure out how to produce a wormhole. Do you understand?”

The trembles have traveled up Five’s hands and throughout the rest of his body. He nods nonetheless, hands cold where they hold the device. Reginald nods back sharply. He leaves the room. Five’s teeth chatter, the anticipation of the pain causing his breath to quicken. 

_Don’t be an idiot, Five._ His mind tells him, but his father’s words are louder. Children are meant to obey aren’t they, he can’t just ignore his father’s words. Reginald is outside of the chamber, hand on the door. Five watches as he moves to shut it. His finger twitches where it rests over the button on the device. The door doesn’t shut all the way, there’s a small slot still open when his father turns away from it. The man has come all the way out from his hiding place, stalking towards Reginald who is angrily calling his name. The man’s, Number Two’s, mouth opens and suddenly a bright flash of light emerges from it, striking out through the air. It goes straight through Reginald’s face. 

The taser drops to the ground, Five’s mind clear of manipulation, clear of words that aren’t his own. That doesn’t stop the gasp that falls from his lips at the sight of his father falling backwards onto the ground. Number Two closes his mouth, laser disappearing. He steps towards Reginald, admiring his work. Five stares in horror, his father’s face is halfway gone. A large burnt hole where his nose and eyes used to be. The man chuckles above Reginald, whistling.

“Damn, that felt even better than I expected.” He remarks, turning towards the chamber, opening the door fully. 

Five is transfixed, watching as Number Two moves into the space.

“Okay, kid, put the cuffs back on.” He says, motioning to the floor.

Five’s eyes remain on the man slowly stepping toward him, his heart beating loudly in his chest. Without another moment's hesitation, he pulls for his powers. Number Two reaches out, grabbing his arm just as Five jumps. They both land outside of the house. The man’s hand tightens around Five’s arm as he sucks in a deep breath, the air knocked out of him. Five twists kicking the man in between the legs who immediately pitches over, gasping at the pain. Five takes the moment to reach for his powers again.

“Diego.” The man croaks, face twisted in pain.

Five’s hands drop at the name, powers dissolving into the air.

“My next laser goes through Diego’s head if you don’t comply.”

That’s all the man has to say for every survival instinct inside of Five to disintegrate. His shoulders drop and his hands unclench. 

“That’s what I thought, you little bastard.” Two growls out, pushing himself back up into a standing position.

He reaches over, gripping Five’s arm roughly, grasp bruising. Five allows himself to be manhandled back into the house. He’s roughly pulled down the hallway, into the elevator and back out of it. Five’s back in the basement, his dungeon awaiting him straight ahead. He’d been so close to getting out, freedom a taste on the tip of his tongue. But, that’d be too easy wouldn’t it? 

Three of the other Sparrows are already cleaning up the mess of his father’s body. The blonde woman looks up when she hears their footsteps.

“Ah, wondered where you two went.” She says with a chuckle, although her face holds suspicion.

“Just dealing with the brat.” Two replies, shaking Five’s arm.

“Well we ‘dealt’ with Four while you were gone.” The woman with black hair speaks up.

She doesn’t look up as she uses a rag to attempt to clean the blood from the floor. The disfigured man next to her grunts in agreement as he pulls Reginald’s body behind himself. Five gulps as his father’s dead body is dragged past him. The two women quickly work to clean the line of blood trailing behind the body. Two hums agreeably, eyes following his teammate as he pulls the body into the elevator.

“We’ve been waiting for this for how many years? No one’s getting in our fucking way now.” The blonde woman snarls, reaching up to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“The Cube?” Two questions, dragging Five back into his glass cage.

“Told it that it had a smudge. I held it down, pretended to clean while Titanium smashed.” The black haired woman laughs gleefully, reenacting Titanium’s smash.

Two chuckles as he reaches down with one hand to pick up the cuffs from the floor. He roughly grabs Five’s pliant hands and forces them back into the cuffs. They click closed, the sound final in Five’s head. The man grabs the boy’s hair, forcing his face up to look at him.

“You won’t be trying shit like that when your brother gets here, now will you?” He questions with a wicked smile.

Five gulps, eyes fluctuating between the intense ones staring back at him. 

“We’re still getting Number One to collect the brother right?” Five hears one of the women ask.

“Of course, at least he’ll be useful before we get rid of him.” Two answers, shoving Five to the floor.

The boy scrambles back up, running to the door and screaming “No!”

It slams in his face, sharp teeth smiling back at him through the glass.

  
  


* * *

Ben had long since stopped pacing, instead setting himself down onto his bed and rereading his favorite book on quantum mechanics. The familiar words feel comforting. As uncertain as all things quantum may be, the words he reads are anything but. And in this new strange world, it feels nice for something to be the same. The only problem is that his idiot teammates are being incredibly loud downstairs. He gets up, shutting his book in frustration. He tosses it onto his bed and heads out of the room. He immediately runs straight into Titanium. 

“Oh, Number One, I was just coming to get you.” She says, reaching up to fix her hair. “Reginald wants you to go get Umbrella Academy’s ‘Diego’.”

“What? Why?” Ben questions, eyebrows screwing up as he considers if this is some sort of test.

“Apparently the child isn’t cooperating?” She offers with a shrug.

Ben isn’t surprised to hear that. He also isn’t surprised that it’s Diego his father wants him to get. They’d been trained on everything Reginald had known about the Umbrella Academy, including that Number Five and Diego seemed close. It had felt like unnecessary information when they were younger, but he recognizes its merit now. He remembers the look on the man’s face when Titanium had brought up the kid, he’d looked devastated and it had only proved his father’s speculations. He breaks from his thoughts to glance up at his teammate’s curious gaze.

“He wants me to go right now?” He asks, reaching up to rub the exhaustion from his face.

“Yeah, he’s pretty pissed. Said he only trusts you to do it.” She says, voice tinged with bitterness.

Ben shrugs with an “Alright, whatever.”

He watches as Titanium leaves down the hallway. He knows for a fact this is Reginald testing him. He must think that Ben will get to the hotel and just lose his marbles. That he won’t be able to bring one of them back, too struck by memories. Well fuck him, he’ll prove him wrong. And he’ll do it without breaking a sweat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Homelander from "The Boys" inspired me hahaha


	10. Chapter 10

Ben exits the elevator, hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. The closer he gets, the more nervous he feels. He’s Number One, he’s the strongest, but what if they all ambush him? What if his memories do come back? What if they kill him? He shakes his head, realizing it’s impossible. They were ridiculously easy to take down and besides if he’s really their brother, there’s no way they’d just execute him. But, then again, they are evil. Who’s to say familial ties mean anything to these people?

 _If familial ties mean nothing, why am I getting the brother?_ He asks himself. He sighs, his head a mess. He’s passing the containment room Number Five is being held in. He tries to force himself to not look in the direction, to keep his eyes on the door. But, there’s too much movement for him to ignore. He glances over, immediately regretting it. The boy is screaming his name, or the other him’s name, banging on the glass. Ben gulps at the horrified look on the kid’s face. He straightens his shoulders and ignores the boy, continuing to the door. His back is rigid as his hand clasps the cold knob. The door swings open as he steps through it and into room 666. The woman lounging on the bed ignores him, flicking through the channels.

“Hi, Lana.” Ben greets, eyes scanning the dark room.

At no response, Ben continues with, “Just passing through. No one’s been in here right?”

“One was but I scared him out, just like your teammate said to.”

“Thank you, you’re-”

“Don’t act like I’ve been given the choice.”

Ben nods, awkwardly walking in front of the TV. He glances back at the woman whose eyes are glued to the television. He opens the door, stepping out into the hallway. Ben remembers the room Diego had been placed in, it was the one across from 502. He starts down the hallway, gulping around the thickness of anxiety in his throat. As long as he doesn’t run into anyone in the hall, this should be easy. Quick, in and out. 

He steps up to the door, he leans his head against it. Silence. He twists the door knob, slowly opening the door. He steps into the room, eyes widening at the sight. There’s people everywhere. A woman he’s never seen before is asleep in the bed. The Umbrella Academy siblings are all sprawled next to each other, sleeping on the carpet. Looks like they had a fucking sleepover. 

He jolts, a memory slapping him. He was laying on the floor, next to Klaus. He sat up to look at his siblings, they were all fast asleep. Five was snuggled into Diego who had his arm around the kid. Vanya and Allison were fast asleep on the couch together. Luther was snoring loudly. Klaus’s face looked lax and calm. Happier than Ben had seen him look in a really long time. He smiled, laying back onto the ground, thinking how much he missed them all. How much he wished he could hug them again. 

Ben blinks out of the memory with a sharp, panicked breath. He glances around the room, they’re all still fast asleep. His eyes catch on Klaus, his face isn’t like the memory. It’s screwed up in worry, as if he’s trapped in a nightmare. 

Ben falls to his knees, a barrage of memories slamming into him full-force.

* * *

Five pants as he drops to the ground. Ben ignored him. His brother is going to fucking die and Diego’s going to be used as some pawn. Who knows what they’ll do to him. His stomach is twisted in knots, nausea making its way up to his throat. He gulps, mouth dry. 

_Are you really giving up right now? You’ve already given up once today, letting your father manipulate you like that. Are you really going to do it again? Are you that weak?_

“Be quiet.” Five whispers, shoving his head into his hands.

_You’re alone now. You have time to try it._

“Try what.” He says, the words coming out as an annoyed statement rather than a question.

_Wormholes._

“Fuck you.” Five grumbles to himself.

_Are you really just going to let Ben die? Diego?_

“What would you like me to try? I’m cuffed, there’s nothing I can fucking do. Besides you heard Dad, the cuffs aren’t even a high enough voltage to create the type of energy force I’d need.”

_You’re the genius, you read the books, you have the power. Not Dad. What if the electricity isn’t the cause but simply the catalyst?_

“I couldn’t possibly have the energy to create a wormhole.” Five mumbles, sitting up as his hands fall to his lap.

_If you never try, you’ll never know. Would you really risk their lives?_

“You make a good point.”

_Well, I’m you, so._

“This is going to be fun.” Five huffs as he pulls himself back up to his feet.

_Just don’t pass out._

“Good advice.” Five retorts with a roll of his eyes.

His wrists rub against the metal as he twists his hands, clenching them as much as possible. He sucks in a deep breath and pulls. The shock isn’t a surprise and yet he drops the hold on his powers immediately as the pain jolts through him.

_You have to hold on. Try again._

Five sighs shakily, closing his hands into fists again. He pulls. The electricity hits him, but he holds his powers. His hands shake as he tightens them. He can feel the energy travel upwards. His face twitches as he glances down at the sphere of blue pooling at his chest. Sparks dance up his arms, entwining into the ball that steadily evolves. He pants, arms trembling. Miniature lightning bolts waltz through the orb, bouncing against the walls of energy. The ball suddenly explodes, a slap of thunder echoing as a bolt hits the glass wall and rebounds back off it. Five drops his powers at the sound, eyes wide as he quickly glances around the basement. When he realizes no one has seen him, he chuckles despite the exhaustion, feeling _powerful._ Something he’s not sure he’s ever felt, besides the seconds before he’d landed in the apocalypse and he’d foolishly thought he’d proven something.

“I did it.” He whispers to himself, smiling brightly.

_That definitely wasn’t a wormhole._

He hears the ding of the elevator. He immediately drops to the ground, smile evaporating.

The man from before, Number Two, is storming down the hallway. Clearly he’s the leader of their little coup. Number Two opens the door, glaring down at Five.

“What the hell was that noise?” The man questions, eyes scanning the chamber.

“What noise?” Five asks innocently, widening his eyes for effect.

“You’re coming upstairs, get up. We’re gonna have a chat.”

Five obediently gets up from the floor and walks out of the room. Two shoves him in front of him. If it wasn’t for the hand reaching out and clasping around his arm, he’d have fallen to the ground. As they walk down the hallway, Five considers when would be the best time to use his new found powers. He decides it will work best if he can get all of the Sparrow Academy together, taking them all out at once. He has no clue how long he can hold the electricity or if he'll even be able to create more than one lightning bolt. The elevator doors shut in front of them. Five sucks in a deep breath. As long as he can get them all together before Ben returns with Diego, everything will be okay.

"You hate him too don't you? I'm sure you enjoyed watching me kill him." Number Two asserts as the elevator doors open.

He drops his bruising grip around Five’s arm, instead moving his arm around Five’s shoulders as he leads him through the doors.

"That bastard ruined our lives." The man continues, arm tightening around Five, pulling him into an almost half-embrace.

"He couldn't even give us real fucking names. I mean, besides my number, my hero name is Laser. Fucking Laser. What kind of shit superhero name is that?" Number Two muses, walking them past the living room.

Five glances into the room, the rest of the Sparrow Academy are standing around in it. Five curses silently as the man steers him away in the opposite direction. 

“How about we get you a drink of water? And I’ll explain the plan to you, you are the biggest part of it after all.”

  
  


* * *

Ben blinks. There are six faces peering down at him curiously. He realizes with a start that he’s laying on his back on the ground. 

“Ben, buddy, are you okay? Do you remember us?” Klaus asks softly, forehead wrinkled in concern.

“Yes, I-I remember.” Ben whispers, sitting up.

Everyone backs away from him, giving him space, everyone but Diego who crouches in front of him grabbing his shoulders.

“Where’s Five?” He questions, eyes searching Ben’s nervous ones.

Ben glances past his brother’s worried face. The rest of his siblings look exhausted, as if they’d been here for years instead of days.

“Where is he?” Diego repeats, gently shaking Ben.

“He’s uh...he’s back at the house.” Ben answers, eyes falling back on the man in front of him.

“You need to explain everything.” Allison says, stepping forward.

“There’s not enough time. I-I’m supposed to be bringing Diego back. Reginald’s gonna get suspicious if I’m gone too long.”

“Why Diego?” The woman he doesn’t recognize questions.

“Five wasn’t cooperating.” Ben answers, his siblings flinching at the words.

“Cooperating with what?” Vanya asks, voice low and anxious.

Ben stares into Diego’s eyes that are searching him for answers.

“Reginald wants to know about his wormholes, that’s all I know. We don’t have time for this. We need to get back.” Ben says, pushing himself up from the floor.

He grabs Diego’s arm who immediately rips out of his grasp.

“Hold the hell up, why just Diego?” Luther questions, stepping forward in case he needs to intervene.

“Look, I-I’m on your side, okay? But if we all go back, they’ll easily defeat you all and then who knows what will happen to Five. They knocked you down in seconds last time.”

“Well that’s because of the cube thing.” Luther reasons with a wave of his hand.

“The cube thing which still exists.” Ben reminds, face distant. “Do you really want to risk our only chance here?”

“No.” Diego immediately answers, shaking his head.

“Diego and I will go back, we’ll take the first chance we get to get Five out and we’ll come back for you all.” Ben promises, eyeing each of his siblings.

“Is our way back secure?” The British woman asks, all eyes falling on her.

“It should be…” Ben says, although his tone indicates the uncertainty of the situation.

“Should be?” Allison questions, voice high with nervousness.

“Diego, there may still be a briefcase on the sidewalk in front of the house, I’d set it down just before I went in. If you can grab it, it’s our ticket out of here if anything goes wrong.” The British woman explains. “Just picture where you want to go and open it, you’ll end up there, okay?”

Diego nods. The siblings crowd around him, hugging him. Ben stands awkwardly to the side. Klaus grabs his arm, pulling him into the hug. Ben allows it, despite how uncomfortable and unwelcome he feels.

“You all come back safe, okay?” Allison mutters, tears in her eyes. 

They all break apart. 

“If things go south and we aren’t back within a day or two, go to room 666, she’ll help you.” Ben softly says, feeling rather bittersweet.

“Dammit, I knew something was up with that room!” Luther shouts to Klaus and Vanya’s exasperation.

  
  


* * *

Five is sitting at the kitchen table. Cuffed hands surrounding a cold glass of water. The chill is comforting against his aching hand. Number Two sits across from him with calculating eyes.

“We need you for your time traveling abilities.” He states simply after minutes of uncomfortable silence.

Five glances up from the cup, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“We want a redo, without Reginald.” The man explains, folding his hands on top of the table. “I know you probably think we’re evil, but we just want the chance to live our lives. Number One and Four? They’ll be fine, they’ll be back when we return.”

“Without Reginald?”

“Yes, you’re smart, read between the lines. He’s the cause of all of this.” Two says, throwing his arms out. “I’d like to put all the blame on you, you’re the one with the time traveling abilities so obviously you’re to blame for the timeline changes. Yet, Reginald’s the one who raised you, he’s to fault. If we kill him, he’ll never be able to adopt us and force us to train our lives away to stop you.”

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Five asks, fingers twitching against the cold glass.

“How’d that work out for you?”

It’s a low blow, it brings flashes of the apocalypse to the forefront of Five’s mind. He blinks them away, now’s not the time.

“Look, if he treated you bad, imagine how he treated us. We were mind controlled most of our lives, until Number Four finally fessed up, telling us what he’d been making her do. After that, we pretended. Staying because we were too old to try to have lives at that point, staying because we knew you’d come and we could use you.”

“Did Ben know?” Five asks. 

He shakes his head at the man’s confusion, correcting himself, “Did Number One know?”

“No, we didn’t tell him anything. He’s Hargreeves’s Number One, couldn’t trust him.” Two says nonchalantly.

He reaches, taking the cup out from Five’s grasp.

"And after you kill the old man?" Five wonders aloud, rubbing his cold hands together.

"We travel back." Two answers, standing from his chair.

Five flinches as the chair scratches against the floor.

"What happens to me?" He asks, watching the man’s back as he walks to the sink.

"Your powers are a liability." Two answers simply, dumping the water.

Five nods, he’d expected as much. 

"What about my siblings?" He asks, staring down at the ring of condensation on the table.

"For a job well done?” Two starts, turning away from the sink. “I think we can arrange for them to go free."

* * *

Ben and Diego step out of the door and into the basement of the house. 

“Oh, shit.” Ben immediately says the moment his shoes touch the concrete floor.

“What do you mean ‘oh, shit’?” Diego questions, glancing around the room.

It’s different from the last time he was here. The panic room is gone, a glass room in place of it.

“Tell me he wasn’t in there, caged like some animal.” Diego growls, pointing at the chamber.

He angrily turns to Ben who looks visibly nervous.

“He was in there before I’d left.” Ben says, holding his hands up in defense. 

“Motherfucker, Ben. Where the hell is he?”

“Maybe Reginald took him upstairs for a bathroom break or something?” Ben offers.

Diego sucks in a deep breath, willing his hands to stop shaking in anger.

“Let’s go then.” He huffs, starting towards the elevator.

Ben has to half-jog to keep up with Diego’s furious pace. Diego steps up to the elevator, slamming the button. 

“Diego, I’m sure he’s okay.”

Diego ignores him, stomping into the elevator when the doors open. Ben steps in behind him, the doors shutting. Diego immediately starts pacing, body rigid. He suddenly stops, a thought occurring to him.

“You got a knife?” He asks, scanning his brother’s body.

Ben rifles through his pockets, pulling out a pocket knife.

“Yeah, why?”

Diego holds his hand out in place of an answer. Ben easily drops the weapon into his hand. Diego flips the knife open, its blade is sharp and thick. Diego nods to himself, closing the knife and shoving it into his own pocket just as the elevator doors open.

Ben and Diego follow the sounds of talking, heading down the hall and towards the living room. Ben grabs Diego’s arm, trying to pull him back but Diego rips away from his grasp stomping into the room.

"Where the hell is my kid?" He questions, eyes scanning the room.

Three of the Sparrow Academy members are standing around, faces drawn in surprise at Diego’s enraged entrance.

"Your kid? I thought you were brothers?” Titanium says, glancing between her teammates in confusion.

"Where is he? I swear to God if something happened to him…"

Diego’s voice trails off as he notices someone else entering the room. 

“Ah, we were just taking a walkabout. You two sure took your time.” Number Two purrs, arm tightly around Five’s shoulder.

“Five, are you okay?” Diego asks, anger replaced with nervous concern.

“He’s fine. Aren’t you, buddy?” Two questions Five, shaking the boy’s shoulder.

“I asked him.” Diego snaps, glaring at the man.

“Oooh, feisty.” Two chuckles, pulling Five along with him across the room.

The rest of the Sparrows join in, loudly laughing. Five stays silent under Two’s arm, eyes jumping between Diego and Ben’s faces.

“I’m okay, Diego.” Five assures softly.

“What’s going on here?” Ben questions, glancing at Reginald’s open office door. “Where’s-”

“Hargreeves? Dead.” Raven supplies easily, sharp smile on her face.

Ben tries to school his shocked expression. Diego stiffens next to him.

“Why?” Ben asks, voice remaining level despite the ominous energy in the air.

Two shrugs as he says, “For fun.”

“Please, let him go, he’s just a kid. You don’t need him anymore.” Diego begs, the danger of the situation becoming more and more apparent.

They were willing to kill Reginald, they have no need for Five. Who’s to say they won’t kill him just for fun?

“Ah that’s where you’re wrong. He’s not just some normal kid, he can time travel. He can fix everything.” Two corrects, hugging Five to his side.

“Two, what are you talking about?” Ben questions, glancing between his teammates searching for something that he’s obviously missing.

“Hargreeves ruined our lives and it’s this runt’s fault for screwing with the timeline. The least he can do is take us back to fix things.” Titanium explains, motioning to Five.

“How the hell will you fix things?” Diego asks roughly, eyes fixated on his little brother’s pinched face.

“Kill the bastard again.” Voodoo answers with a shrug.

“But if the Umbrella Academy destroyed the timeline before, imagine how this could ruin it.” Ben suggests, attempting to somehow diffuse a situation he hadn’t prepared for.

He feels like an idiot. He’d known his teammates were up to something with all their sneaking around. And yet they’d still tricked him so easily. Used his superiority complex to their advantage. He hadn’t even questioned that Hargreeves would only trust him to get the job done. And now he’s gotten himself and his siblings into a desperate situation.

“We’ve already got the run down from our little genius.” Two says, bending to kiss the top of Five’s head who wilts under him. “Like I told you before, I don’t give a shit about the world.”

“You’re not fucking taking him.” Diego snarls, Ben’s grip on his arm the only thing keeping him from lunging at the bastard holding Five.

“Listen up, buttercup, you’re the hostage. You don’t get to make decisions.” Raven says smugly.

Diego winks at Five with his left eye. The boy startles at the motion, scanning his brother’s face with wide eyes. Within a second, Diego reaches into his pocket, pulling out Ben’s knife and tossing it. It sails through the air, hitting its target, Number Two, straight in the shoulder. The man shouts, dropping his hold from Five to grip the weapon sticking out of his arm. Diego takes the moment to grab Five’s arm and pull him towards him. The boy falls into his brother’s chest at the unexpected movement. Number Two rips the knife from his shoulder, tossing it to the ground. He’s fuming, face twisted in anger at being outplayed. Blood pours out of his deep wound but he ignores it, turning to his teammates.

“Kill Number One.” He orders, before turning back towards the siblings to say, “Diego’s mine.”

“Five, there’s a briefcase outside the house, go get it, now.” Diego hurriedly whispers into his brother’s ear, pushing him towards the doorway. He immediately has to roll to evade a laser. 

“Go!” He shouts at Five who’s staring at him motionlessly.

Five blinks, listening to his brother’s order and running out of the room. 

“Voodoo, go get him!” Two demands.

The disfigured man chases after Five who’s currently struggling to open the front door with his cuffed hands. 

The windows in the living room suddenly explode, birds ramming through them. Diego’s moment of distraction almost costs him his life as he barely jumps out of the way. He curses, grabbing his arm that had been burnt with the edge of the laser. 

Ben is busy trying to fight off birds and Titanium who’s stalking towards him, easily throwing his tentacles out of the way. The birds are coming at him from all sides, squawking angrily. He slams them into the walls and the floor. One hits his face, he slaps it away just as Titanium punches him. He flies across the room, back slamming into the bricks above the fireplace. He falls to the ground face first, winded. He blinks up from the floor, Titanium is already advancing on him again and he can feel the claws of the birds landing on his back. He glances over at Diego who’s barely evading Two’s lasers. Voodoo has returned to the room, Five’s back to his chest as he carries him. The boy is struggling against the arm around his chest, scratching at it and kicking his legs.

 _Shit._ Ben thinks, just as Titanium’s leg swings. He blacks out, head banging on the floor. The birds peck at him, some flying away to join in the cyclone of ravens flying around the room.

“Titanium, help me incapacitate this bastard!” Two shouts, stomping when he misses Diego again, instead destroying a support beam.

Five snarls, slamming his head back into Voodoo’s face. There’s a sick crack. Five cries out, blood gushing down from his own, now broken, nose. 

“That was stupid.” Voodoo whispers into his ear. 

Five continues to struggle as Titanium comes up from behind Diego. He screams his brother’s name, trying to warn him. Diego turns just as the woman punches him. He flies across the room, slamming into the counter of the bar. He falls face first to the ground. Five cries out in frustration as he continues to try to escape the arm around him. Voodoo chest moves as he chuckles. 

Five watches in terror as the woman picks his brother up by the hair. Diego’s face is bloody and he looks dazed. 

“No, stop!” Five screams.

_Do it, you idiot. You know how. Your brothers will die. Do it._

He pulls for his powers. The cuffs shock him, he ignores it. 

_Keep going._

He grits his teeth. His eyes turn black. 

“What the hell is happening?” Two growls, attention now on Five instead of Diego.

Titanium looks away from his brother to Five as well. Diego smiles softly. Five smiles back. An orb of power grows around his chest. He can feel the arm around him drop, his feet landing on the floor. Titanium drops Diego who immediately shuffles as far as he can away from the woman. He crawls behind the bar, hoping it'll be enough protection.

“Is that-?”

The room explodes in light, a bolt of lightning flashes. Raven screams as she is electrocuted. Titanium, Number Two, and Voodoo all drop to the floor. The birds disperse, slamming themselves into walls and back through the windows as they try to escape. Five clenches his hands even tighter, the ball returning, coiling around him and turning darker by the second.

“Voodoo!” Two shouts from across the room.

The disfigured man’s eyes are wide as he stares up at the scene. He crawls across the floor, eyes locked on the knife. He grabs it. He glances back at the boy who now has a black ball of energy surrounding him. He focuses on the boy, picturing him in his mind and slams the knife down into his own hand. Five screams out, knees crashing to the floor, and powers flickering.

 _Just a little more!_ His mind shouts through the pain.

Voodoo rips the knife down through tendons, nerves, and bone. Cutting through his own hand roughly. Tears stream down Five’s face as he reaches with all of his remaining energy. He pulls himself back up on trembling legs. The ball suddenly spins, twisting into a small cyclone of darkness. It grows rapidly, dangerously.

“Voodoo! You idiot!” Two shouts, fingernails scratching the floor as he’s dragged towards the wormhole.

Voodoo stares in shock, eyes flickering from the boy and down to the blood soaked ground underneath him. He’d expected that to incapacitate him, he’d expected him to drop unconscious from the pain. He’s still standing, even as blood pours from his mutilated hand. Voodoo quickly reaches up, encircling both hands tightly around his own neck. Number Two screams as he’s sucked into the darkness, Titanium is quickly pulled in behind him. Voodoo tightens his hands, his vision turning blurry. He can see out of the corner of his eye, the boy turning. Furniture is lifted from the ground and pulled into the wormhole. He squeezes harder. He’s ripped across the floor and up into the void. The blanket of darkness fades and Five falls forward. His head hits the ground hard. He can hear Diego shout his name as he gasps for air. He feels hands on him, turning him over. Ben’s face is staring down at him in horror. 

“Diego!” His brother yells, voice cracking.

Diego’s suddenly over Five, eyes catching on his mangled hand. Five blinks, black spots dancing across his vision. He gasps once more, before falling limp, unconscious.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to preface this chapter by saying I have absolutely no medical knowledge whatsoever, I haven’t ever even watched an episode of a medical based show. I spent some time researching but I would not be surprised if I still butcher medical terminology or what would really happen in a situation like this. So, if you do have medical expertise, please forgive me and don’t beat me up for my lack of knowledge <3
> 
> There is also a WARNING at the end of the chapter and if there’s anything you can think of that could result from the injuries mentioned in the last chapter that could trigger you, please check the warning.

Diego curses to himself. He has one hand under Five’s head, one on his face, thumb rubbing against his cheek. He knows Five’s breathing, knows his heart is still beating. That doesn’t stop the worry filling him. The longer Five’s out, the more likely of a serious head injury. 

“We need to get him to a hospital right now. Is there a car?” Diego questions, glancing up at Ben.

Ben is about to answer when he notices Raven pushing herself up from the floor. His tentacles emerge from his chest, reaching out and twisting around her neck. There’s a sick pop and she drops to the ground bonelessly. Diego stares from where he’s crouched over Five. Ben steps over to the body, pulling the jacket off from around her. He heads back over to Diego, holding the shirt out.

“For the bleeding.” He says simply.

Diego grabs it, wrapping it around Five’s hand as gently as possible. The boy whimpers, face twisting in pain.

“He’s waking up. We need to go now.”

Diego doesn’t know how he’s keeping it together, how his words haven’t devolved into messy stutters. Maybe he has a head injury, maybe it’s adrenaline. All he knows is the longer Five’s not getting help, the marginally worse things are going to get. Ben nods, running to Reginald’s office to grab the car keys. Diego picks up Five into his arms. As he moves to stand, he cries out almost dropping his brother back to the floor.

“Diego, are you okay?” Ben asks nervously.

“Yeah, fuck, I just hurt my back.” Diego mumbles, waving him off.

“Here, let me.” Ben offers, holding his arms out to take Five.

“No.” Diego says, tightening his grip on his brother and starting to walk, despite the deep ache in his back.

Ben jogs past him to open the door. They exit the house, Diego's incredibly grateful that no one is out right now. Or else they'd have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. His eyes scan the sidewalk in front of the house.

"Do you see a briefcase?"

Ben shakes his head. Diego hums, glancing back down at Five nervously. His little brother’s eyes are screwed up tight and his breathing is shaky. They quickly shuffle into the car, Ben in the driver’s seat and Diego and Five in the back. Diego maneuvers his brother so that Five’s sitting next to him with his arm tightly around him to keep him from jostling. Five blinks down at the bloody shirt around his hand and then up to Diego who’s worriedly watching him.

"Diego, I can't feel my hand." Five croaks, pupils dilated.

Diego glances down at the bloody fabric, dark red is already leaking through it. He feels panic grip him, can feel that breakdown coming quick. Words already catching in his throat.

"You're go-gonna be o-okay." Diego promises through gritted teeth, squeezing Five’s shoulder.

Ben catches his eyes in the rearview mirror as he pulls out onto the road.

"Don't lie to me." Five mumbles, closing his eyes tightly again.

"I wo-would never lie to y-you, Five."

Five hums, curling into himself. As if he doesn’t believe a word Diego says. Diego doesn’t believe a word he says. He gulps, turning his attention to the buildings rapidly passing by. 

They make it to the hospital in record time, which Diego is thankful for because another moment longer of listening to Five’s heavy breathing and pitiful moans and he would have expelled everything in his stomach which would have to be nothing, he realizes. Ben slams on the brakes in front of the emergency room doors. Diego rips his door open and gently pulls Five out, picking him up into his arms. He can feel Five’s uninjured hand tightening in his shirt.

“I’m gonna get the others, okay?”

Diego ignores Ben, slamming the door and starting towards the building. His back screams at him, he feels tears well up in his eyes as he enters through the sliding doors. Cold air barrages against him, the smell of antiseptic piercing. He can feel eyes burning through him as he hurries to the front desk. He wonders what they must look like, the dry blood he can feel on his own face, Five’s broken nose still leaking dark red down his lip, the marks around his neck, his hand leaving a trail of blood on the pristine floor. There are multiple nurses working, one already talking to another patient. Diego opens his mouth, words refusing to escape. The nurse looks up at him expectantly, eyes catching on Five. Diego steels himself, hearing Mom’s words in his head.

“He-he needs hel-he-help.” He stutters, arms trembling. “St-stabbed through the ha-hand.”

The nurse glances at the bloody garment, then immediately picks up the phone. She says something into it, but Diego can’t hear it over the pounding in his head. She gets up, leading him over to a set of doors. They open, two nurses roll a hospital bed through the door. They reach for Five, Diego helps them set him on the bed. Five’s hand is still clenched in his shirt, his eyes wide and nervous as he stares at Diego. Diego opens his mouth to try to ask if he can go with them, but words won’t come out. One of the nurses gently removes Five’s hand, while the other opens the bloody shirt. Their face doesn’t change, expression giving nothing away as they nod to the other nurse. The woman from the front desk tries to lead Diego away, telling him something but he can’t hear it, feet stuck in place as he watches Five be wheeled away.

“Sir, sir. Can you follow me?”

Diego blinks, the doors are shut, Five out of sight. The woman stares up at him, kind expression on her face. Diego only now feels the tears streaming down his face.

The woman motions over to the desk. Diego follows listlessly. 

“Sir, are you injured as well?”

Diego shakes his head. The nurse seems to consider for a moment, before she pulls a piece of paper out, setting it on top of the desk with a pen.

“Can I get you to write your relation to the patient and the patient’s name on here, please? I’m gonna have you fill out paperwork but we just need this right now.”

Diego is thankful he doesn’t have to choke any more words out. He nods, picking up the pen in his hand. The pen shakes as he writes. 

_Father_

_Five Hargreeves_

Diego looks up at the woman’s face, memorizing it, so that Allison can rumor her later to get rid of their paperwork.

“Thank you.” The woman says, taking the paper and pen. 

She types on the keyboard. The sounds echoing in Diego’s head as he glances around the room. There’s people everywhere, the building is packed. There’s crying, there’s someone in the corner throwing up in a trash can. There’s people asleep against each other. He’d never been to the hospital before, always content to get Mom’s help. Even when Klaus had broken his jaw, Mom had fixed him up. Leaving Five in the hands of strangers, somewhere where he can’t see him is frankly terrifying. He feels an ache in his chest, wishing Mom was here to comfort him and to help his little brother. 

He finds his eyes falling back on the nurse, she’s staring at him. He must have missed something she’d said. 

“Here, can I get you to fill this out?” She asks softly, scanning his face. 

Diego grasps the clipboard.

“The bathroom is right over there if you’d like to wash up.” She offers, pointing.

“We’ll get you as soon as we hear anything.”

Diego nods. A shaky exhale in place of a thank you as he turns. He searches the room until he finds an empty seat in the far corner. He heads over, eyes following him. He feels frustration boil in his chest and he sends the most acidic glare he can muster to the kid watching him with wide eyes. The kid turns away complaining to the person next to them. Diego drops into the uncomfortable chair, slumping. He’s thankful for a break from standing, his back is really hurting. He’d give anything for some Advil or maybe a whiskey. He blinks down at the paper, a rouge tear landing on the sheet. He sighs, pulling the pen out from under the clip. There’s a million questions to answer, questions he doesn’t have even a clue of how to respond. Questions about insurance, questions about allergies. He feels a sob bubble up in his throat at how frustrated and worried he is. His shoulders shake as he writes what he can, making up what he can’t. 

He returns the clipboard and papers on his way to the bathroom. He shuts the door behind himself, locking it, and then turning to peer into the mirror. He looks like shit. He bends, moaning at the pain in his back, as he turns on the sink. He washes his face, twitching when he runs his hand over his busted lip and a bruise on his cheek. He dries himself with a paper towel. He twists, pulling up his shirt with a hiss. There’s a dark bruise forming along his back. He sighs, dropping his shirt back into place.

He leaves the bathroom, heading down the hall. His seat is taken as are all the other seats. He cringes, leaning against the wall instead. He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, begging his mind to calm. Trying to reason with himself that Five could be perfectly fine, that that much blood isn’t a problem. That they’ll be able to save his hand. That Five won’t, once again, be forced to live with the trauma tattooed onto his body.

He blinks at the sound of someone standing in front of him. 

“Excuse me sir, you’re the father of Mr. Hargreeves, correct?”

Diego nods. He wonders if he'd dissociated for that long or if someone had really come to get him this fast. He thinks if it's the latter it must mean something good. 

“Can you follow me please?”

Diego gulps. He supposes this could mean something very bad too. He pushes away from the wall, bracing himself for the pain that comes in droves. He follows the male nurse through the double doors. He’s led down a hallway, counting the numbers on the doors, trying to distract himself from the terrible thoughts swirling in his head. The man finally turns into a room. Diego half expects to find his little brother dead. Instead, he finds Five on the bed, hand wrapped, splint on his nose, and a doctor standing next to the bed, looking through something on her clipboard. Although Five does look like he's just about been raised from the dead, Diego feels weight fall off of his shoulders. Five glances up, face twisted in something that leaves Diego feeling right back as unsettled as he had been before he entered the room. The doctor has a somber look on her face. 

“Hello, Mr. Hargreeves, I assume?”

Diego nods. The doctor motions to the chair next to Five’s bed. Diego sits, stifling a painful moan.

"We were able to slow the bleeding and temporarily close the wound." The doctor starts, eyes flitting between Five and Diego.

"That's good, right?" Diego questions, searching the woman’s face.

"Well, after closing the wound, we conducted a series of x-rays.” She says, flicking through the flimsy photographs on her clipboard.

She steps over to the side of the bed that Diego’s sitting at. She pulls one of the x-rays out, holding it for them to see. 

“Unfortunately, the majority of his nerves were lacerated.” She points to the image.

Diego’s eyes are focused on the x-ray, he doesn’t know where nerves are supposed to be but he generally knows what a hand should look like, what the bones should look like. He gulps, glancing up at the doctor. 

“It appears there was not only a uh- a cut through the hand, but also it had been crushed. You can see many of the bones in his hand have splintered.”

Diego tries to look at his brother through the corner of his eye. Five’s staring down at his hand, pale face blank.

"Infection is too big of a risk here and with the nerves being severed-"

The doctor steps away from the bed, clipping the x-ray back into her clipboard.

"What are you saying?" Diego questions, hands shaking in his lap.

"Our only option here is medical amputation."

His heart drops. He can feel the air being sucked from his lungs, as if he’d been thrown across the room all over again. He turns in his seat. Five’s still staring down at the bandages. His lip is twitching. 

“Five…” Diego whispers, hand reaching out to rest on his brother’s upper arm above the injury.

He can feel Five’s arm shaking as he watches his face. He can tell he’s trying to be strong, trying to pretend like he’s not fazed by this new information. Diego achingly stands from his chair and pulls Five’s head into his chest, hand in his hair. His little brother hiccups, sobs uncontrollably spilling out of him. 

“I understand you both may need a moment alone. I’ll be right back.” The doctor says, stepping out of the room and shutting the door.

Five cries loudly against his brother. Diego uses his free hand to twist under Five’s arm and around him, pulling him tighter into the hug. Diego cries, but he forces himself to be silent. He’s not the one who should be comforted right now. 

“I-I...I’m so-so-sorry.” He mumbles against Five’s head. 

His little brother just cries harder, the culmination of all the shit hitting him at once. The apocalypse, Harold, his father, the Sparrow Academy, it’s all led up to this moment, Five thinks. The moment when he loses a piece of his body, a piece of himself to signify just how broken he really is. How useless. 

Diego’s embrace would be comforting, but he’s trembling so hard he can barely feel it. He’d known it was bad, he could tell the way the doctor looked at him. He could tell when, after they'd asked him a lot of strange questions, they said they were getting his Dad. He hadn’t expected anyone but Diego to walk through the door, but he knew his appearance signified how terrible the news would be. He knew deep down this was a possibility, it was never off the table, but he’d foolishly expected them to just patch him up, that they could miraculously turn back time and he’d be fine. He realizes he’d thought the same thing in the apocalypse. That if he could turn back time, if he could get back to his family, he’d erase what had happened to him, what had happened to his body. But the scars remained. Time didn’t change anything. He still had the nightmares, still hated himself, still despised his reflection. Just another piece of him cut out without his consent. Although, he’d choose this a million times over the moment in the apocalypse, having them both is almost too much to bear. Being broken in every single way possible. He shakily sighs, his cries evaporating as he’s sucked into his head. His face is numb, he wonders if that will be taken from him too. If people will just take and take parts of him until there’s nothing of him left to take. He feels like some sort of experiment that’s broken apart and then messily pieced back together again.

The door opens. He clenches his eyes shut, unbroken hand grasping the blanket tightly. He should have known that a moment of power would lead to a lifetime of vulnerability and pain and weakness. Powerless. That’s all he’ll ever be from this moment on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Serious Main Character Injury, Hospital Scene
> 
> The injury results in an amputation which may be described in a triggering way, as the character struggles finding this out and thinks very negatively about it. This takes place within a crowded hospital setting.
> 
> \--
> 
> Also, please note, I’m very busy this week so updates will likely continue to take longer! Apologies!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, so sorry this update took so long! I’ve been out of town since last Friday so I didn’t get many chances to write! Hopefully now that I’m back I’ll be able to update more frequently again!

Diego paces the floor, head lowered, hands shaking. Five had been taken into surgery over twenty minutes ago. The doctor had asked Diego to wait in the room, said they had a few questions they needed to ask him. Five had anxiously looked at him and Diego had hugged him tighter. He’d promised Five that everything would be okay, that they’d figure this out, that he’d be here the moment he woke. Five hadn’t said anything, face blank and pale. Diego had whispered into his little brother’s hair how much he loved him, how proud he was of him. Five had trembled at the words, knuckles turning white where they fisted the blanket over him. They’d taken Five from the room, letting Diego know that the surgery would take around an hour. As soon as the doors had shut, he’d fallen into the chair, heavy sobs escaping him. He’d cried for Five, hiccupping, lungs begging for a semblance of air. The words of the doctor bounced around in his head.

_We have some questions._

He’d fallen silent, realizing the weight of the words. Five had come into the hospital with a crushed and stabbed hand, a broken nose, hand prints around his neck. He knew what it must look like. He’d seen it many times before when he’d worked at the police academy. At best, it was child endangerment. At worst…

He’d stood and began to pace. His hands shake as anxiety churns. They could be in serious trouble here if Allison doesn’t arrive soon. If they start questioning him, if the police get involved, the situation could devolve before Five even gets out of surgery. He jolts at a knock on the door. It opens and three nurses enter the room. Diego stills, scanning the smiling faces. One of the nurses has a notepad in their hand, the others just seem to be along to assist. 

_Or in case I’m violent._ He tells himself as he takes a few deep breaths.

“Good Evening, Mr. Hargreeves.” One of the nurses greets, motioning to one of the chairs.

Diego shakily returns the sentiment, dropping himself down into the seat with a hiss. The nurse with the notepad pulls a rolling chair from the other side of the room and settles it in front of Diego. The two others come up behind him, standing around. Diego glances between them as he tightly grips his hands into his pants. 

“I’m Nurse Hannigan and I just have a couple of routine questions. With serious injuries like the ones your son has, it’s important that we fully understand the situation.” The nurse says, settling into the seat in front of Diego.

Diego nods, hair falling into his face.

“What happened?” Hannigan asks, eyes dropping to the bruise on Diego’s cheek.

“We...uh...we....we were in a car crash.” Diego croaks, voice hard from crying.

“A car crash?” The nurse repeats, jotting something down in their notebook.

Diego nods, mind racing with all the ways this situation can turn.

“We didn’t hear of an ambulance arrival for you.” 

“Uh-no my brother got to the scene before an ambulance could, rushed us here.” Diego says, eyes locked on the floor, voice coming out surprisingly steady.

“And the marks around your son’s throat?” Hannigan questions, an eyebrow raised as he scans Diego’s face.

Diego looks up, eyes flitting between the nurses. The only word coming to him is a loud, terrified “shit.”

“He...he got into a fight at school.” He says instead.

The nurse nods as he writes, face emotionless. Diego knows better, he knows he’s worked himself right into a corner. If he’d been questioning himself, he’d never believe the words coming out of his own mouth. 

“Where does your son go to school?”

“North East High.” Diego blurts the first high school he can think of.

The nurse jots the name down and Diego grits his teeth.

“Do you have any injuries?” One of the standing nurses questions, scanning Diego from his head down to his shoes.

“I hurt my back.” Diego admits, hoping the injury will somehow help his case.

If Allison can just get her ass here, then they can still salvage this. He’d burn the entire hospital down to the ground before he let Five be taken from him. He just hopes it doesn’t have to get to that point.

The nurse in the chair stands, motioning for Diego to show them. Diego follows him up, grimacing as he turns and lifts his shirt.

“Oh, Mr. Hargreeves, that looks extremely painful.” Hannigan remarks with a whistle.

“Let’s get you in for an x-ray while we check in with your son’s school.”

Diego calms his expression as he drops his shirt and turns. He nods with a gulp and follows the nurses out of the room. 

* * *

Ben is back in the hotel, walking down the hallway with purpose. He pushes a door open, finding the rest of his siblings where he’d left them. They all jolt at the sound, looking at their brother in surprise.

“What happened?”

“Where’s Diego?”

“Where’s Five?”

“There was a fight,” Ben starts, glancing between Lila and his siblings. “Five was really hurt, I dropped them off at the hospital.”

“How hurt?” Allison asks, pushing herself up from the floor.

“Hurt like I think he’s going to lose his hand.” Ben mumbles, fixing his gaze on the floor. 

“What?!” rings throughout the room.

“What are we waiting for? We need to get the hell out of here!” Luther says, pushing himself up from the ground.

The rest of the siblings follow suit, all anxious to see their little brother.

“Wait...what about Harlan?” Vanya questions.

“I don’t know...he’s in here for a reason.” Ben whispers, rubbing his arm with his opposite hand.

“He’s in here because Dad’s an asshole!” Vanya corrects, tone high and angry.

“Vanya, we’ll come back for the others,” Allison promises softly. “Five is our priority right now.”

Vanya nods despite the frustration on her face.

“You’re telling us exactly what happened on the way there, bro.” Klaus says, patting Ben’s back as he leaves the room.

* * *

"Alright Mr. Hargreeves, I'll have a doctor take a look at this and get back to you. We'll have you take a seat back in the waiting room and we'll come get you as soon as your son is out of surgery." 

Diego nods, thanks the woman, and heads out of the room. His hands tremble as he heads down the hallway. He feels paranoid, as if the nurses are watching him. As if the handcuffs are already around his hands and he's being forcibly taken away from Five. He steels himself as he heads back into the waiting room. He settles into an open chair. He tries to calm himself, tries to tell himself that things will be fine, that Allison will get here and they can fix everything.

_Not everything._

Five bloody on the ground flashes through his head. This is the second time he's found his little brother looking like he's knocking on death's door, lying on the ground bloody and unresponsive. He blinks the images from his head. The images of all the times he's failed Five. Of the little Five he found hurt on the ground after being tased by his father and kicked by his own brother, the Five who he ripped hope from, the Five who heard his siblings talking about him, the Five who got lost in an apocalypse, the Five who was attacked by two different evil men, the Five who'd watched his brother be murdered and was forced to be an assassin, the Five who hated himself so much, the Five who was killed twice, the Five who was kidnapped by his own father, the Five who lost his hand trying to save his siblings. Diego's hand reaches up to cover his mouth as he chokes out a sob. No one should ever have to go through even one of the things his little brother has had to go through, especially Five, sweet Five who'd spent his childhood trying to protect his siblings, taking the brunt of their father's abuse, and yet never hating them. He'd returned to 2019 still loving them, still wanting them back and what did he get in return? A family that couldn't remember him. Diego curses himself, curses the world as he drops his head down into his hands on his lap. 

He doesn't know how long he's sitting like that before he feels a hand on his head. He lifts himself up, coming face to face with Allison. The rest of their siblings are standing behind her. They all have empathetic looks on their faces, most of them pale with tear stains.

"Diego…" Allison whispers, tear trailing down her face.

Diego pushes himself up from his chair, face twisting into a cringe at the pain. 

"Allison, I'm gonna need you to rumor some people." He mumbles, motioning to the front desk.

"Of course." Allison says with a nod. 

"They have our paperwork. And the nurses in the back questioned me."

Allison hums. She wipes her face with her sleeve and then stalks off towards the desk.

"Lila...where's Lila?" Diego questions, suddenly turning erratic as he realizes this situation can be fixed.

 _Completely fixed._ Lila was able to save Five before she could save him again.

"She's back at the house, looking for the briefcase." Luther answers easily.

"She needs to get here right now. She can- she can fix this." Diego mumbles, mind racing.

The siblings look between each other. 

"Why the fuck are you looking at each other like that?" Diego questions, tone quickly turning agitated. 

"Uh-I'll go get her." Ben offers, awkwardly stepping away from the siblings.

Diego starts to pace, his mind running with the realization that Lila can fix this. He can feel his siblings staring at him. He ignores them, hope sloshing in his chest intermingling with nervous energy.

"Mr. Hargreeves?" A nurse asks, suddenly in front of Diego.

Diego stops pacing to stare at the man.

"Your son is out of surgery." 

Diego momentarily stops breathing as he glances between his siblings. The nurse motions to the doors across from the room and starts toward them. Diego and his siblings quickly follow behind the man. Allison trails behind them after finishing with the front desk workers.

They head down the hallway, Diego pointing out some people for Allison to rumor later. They enter a room, falling silent. Five’s laying in the bed asleep, looking smaller than ever. The siblings cautiously step into the room, terrified of waking him.

“We put him on anesthesia for the surgery. It could be a bit before he wakes up.” The nurse explains.

He then points to the button on the wall, telling them to press it if they need anything or if Five wakes. Luther thanks the man as he leaves the room.

“I-uh I’m going to go rumor them real quick, I’ll be right back.” Allison whispers, voice watery.

She slips out of the door as the rest of the siblings circle around Five’s bed. Diego reaches out, gently moving Five’s bangs out of his face.

They stand there for a while, just watching Five breath, steadily avoiding looking down at where his hand should be. They twist at the sound of the door opening. They expect Allison but instead it’s Ben and Lila entering the room. Ben follows behind Lila like a lost puppy, hands clenching and head downcast.

“Lila, thank God.” Diego says letting out a deep breath.

“Oh, poor thing.” Lila gasps, hand covering her mouth.

Her eyes lock on Five’s bandaged arm.

“Can you fix this? Please?” Diego asks, eyes wide as he glances between Lila and his little brother.

Lila nods, stepping up to the bed. She pulls for Five’s powers. 

Nothing.

She tries again, hands clenching tightly.

Nothing. Not even a wisp of blue.

"Why aren't they working?" Diego questions, tone slightly raised in nervousness.

"I...I don't know. If he can't use his powers anymore-" Lila starts.

"What are you talking about? You brought him back from fucking death, did he have his powers then? You're telling me you can't reverse time but a couple of fucking hours?!" Diego shouts, reaching over and shaking Lila’s shoulders.

"Diego!” Klaus whisper-shouts, smacking his brother’s arm. “Stop, you're making things worse." 

Diego glances to where Klaus is looking. Five’s eyes are moving under his eyelids, face scrunching. Diego’s mouth shuts with a click, jaw tight as he drops his hands from Lila.

“I’m sorry, Diego. You must know I’d help him if I could.” Lila whispers, face drawn in concern.

Diego shakes his head, tears rising once more. 

“I know.” He says, voice so low it’d be impossible to hear if it wasn’t for the silence in the room.

The disappointment and disillusionment is stifling. Diego hadn’t expected things to actually be fixed, god forbid the universe gave his little brother a break. And yet, he grieves the hope he’d had only moments ago.

The door opens again, this time Allison returning. She looks between the siblings, eyebrows raised in a silent question. Everyone’s staring at Diego, watching him in concern, as if he’s a bomb about to explode. 

“I couldn’t fix it.” Lila supplies in a small voice.

Allison sighs, stepping over to the side of Five’s bed. She lays a gentle hand on his upper arm. She turns to face Diego, her face soft and free of judgement.

“Diego, as a parent,” She starts, leaning against the bed. “You have to understand that bad things are going to happen, things that are out of your control.” 

Diego shakes his head, posture turning defensive as he folds his arms across his chest.

“Allison, this isn’t just some bad thing that happens to all teenagers. This isn’t a breakup.” He retorts. “He’s losing his hand, he will never have a normal life.”

“I know and it’s horrible and he doesn’t deserve it. But what matters right now is that you’ll be there when he comes out the other side. And you have to be strong for him, he looks up to you, he trusts you, how you react is going to deeply affect him.” Allison says softly, normal parental tone forgotten for one filled with compassion.

Diego drops his arms, releasing the tension in his body.

“And losing an arm is not the same as losing his life.” Klaus adds, reaching over to pat Diego’s back. “He can survive, he is the strongest person I’ve ever met. Don’t underestimate him.” 

Diego turns to his brother with a shaky expression.

“I don’t underestimate him. It’s just that...he doesn’t deserve this. He’s…” His voice breaks off in a sob. “He’s just a kid.”

Luther reaches over and pulls Diego into a hug. 

“Five’s not alone anymore and neither are you.” Luther says softly, rubbing his brother’s back.

The rest of the siblings join in on the hug, group hugs becoming a normalcy these days. 

“What would you guys say to getting some food from the cafeteria while Five’s sleeping? I’m starving.” Vanya says softly, glancing between her siblings.

The hug dissolves as the siblings separate.

“I’m gonna stay with Five but you guys go ahead.” Diego waves them off, settling into the chair next to the bed.

“I’ll stay too but can you guys bring me back a pudding?” Klaus asks, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Watery chuckles ring throughout the room as the siblings and Lila head out of the room.  
  


* * *

There's darkness, blackness then suddenly light. Five blinks awake. He feels strange, cold, the same way he felt when Lila had found him. He feels slightly detached from his body, like it's still not his own even as it begins to wake. He supposes his body never has been his own after all. He twitches his fingers, tries to not think about how his right hand is the only one that responds, how he can't feel his left hand.

“Hi, buddy, how are we feeling?” Klaus asks, leaning over the bed.

Five blinks, eyes moving past Klaus’s to quickly scan the room. His gaze falls on Diego who’s asleep in the chair next to his bed. Klaus follows his gaze. He moves away from the bed, gently shaking Diego's arm. Diego's eyes blearily open, bloodshot and red-rimmed. He twists in his seat, eyes falling on his little brother who's staring at him. 

“Oh, Five, thank God.” Diego mumbles, pushing himself up out of his seat.

He gently pushes past Klaus. His vision turns blurry as he reaches out and runs a hand through Five’s hair. The boy stares up at him wide eyed. Diego sighs, leaning down, his forehead against Five's. He reaches up under his little brother's upper back and hugs him to his chest. 

"You're okay." He whispers as his little brother trembles under him.

He tightens his hold, reaching up with one hand to push Five's head into the crook of his neck. 

"Everything's gonna be okay, kiddo." Diego promises, tears streaming down his face. 

Five blinks at Klaus, eyes wide but distant. As if he's stuck somewhere else. Klaus stares back at the expression worriedly. 

"I-I should let the others know." Klaus whispers, ducking out of the room.

Diego softly untangles himself from his brother. He settles on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands against Five's upper arms. He forces himself to not look, to keep his eyes on Five’s pale face.

"Are you cold?" He asks, voice low.

Five doesn't respond, turning his head to stare up at the ceiling. 

"Okay, I'll uh- I'll go see if I can find some blankets." 

Diego moves to stand from the bed, but his hand is caught by Five's small one. Diego twists, looking down at his brother.

"Don't leave me." Five begs, voice tiny and broken.

Diego moves his little brother’s hand from grasping his own, instead clasping it between his.

"I will never leave you." He promises, settling back onto the bed. 

He pushes himself upwards until he's leaning against the headboard of the bed next to Five. He pulls his little brother against him, settling an arm around him.

"I will never leave you." He repeats, tears rolling down his cheeks as he stares down at Five's bandaged arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby Five: Da-Da…  
> Reginald: Dad?  
> Baby Five: Diego


	13. Chapter 13

The siblings rush back into the hospital room, dragging along bags of food. They’re all out of breath as they clatter into the room. Klaus loudly hushes them, pointing to the bed. Five and Diego are asleep, heads resting against each other.

“Oh my goodness, I wish I had a camera.” Allison whispers, hand covering her mouth in adoration.

“They really are adorable.” Luther agrees, setting the bag of food down on the table. 

“Should we wake them though? They must be starving.” Vanya asks, looking through the bag she’s carrying.

“I think we should let them sleep.” Lila remarks as she drops to the white floor.

Allison nods, reaching over to flick off the light. The room is bathed in darkness as the siblings scatter, picking spots on the floor to sit. Klaus easily flops to the ground, resting his head into his arms. 

“I wonder how many people have barfed on this floor.” Klaus mumbles, already half-asleep.

He smirks at the sound of his siblings groaning. He peeks an eye open to where Ben has settled into the corner of the room away from everyone. Ben looks anxious, eyes flickering between the floor and Five. Klaus considers that and decides he needs to talk to Ben sooner rather than later. He moves to sit up just as the door to the room opens.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you all,” A nurse whispers, guilty expression on her face. “But, visiting hours are over. I’ll have to ask you all to come back in the morning.”

The siblings all glance at Allison who doesn’t waste a moment in saying, “I heard a rumor you let us stay.”

“On second thought, you can all stay.” The woman says with a bright smile. “Have a good evening.”

The door closes and sighs reverberate through the room. Klaus turns back to Ben who’s already pushing himself up from the floor.

“I-uh-I think I should go back to the house, clean up the...mess.” Ben mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Klaus lets out a heavy, tired breath before forcing himself up. His joints pop as he stretches.

“I’ll go with you Bennyboy, the place was trashed, there's no way you can clean it on your own.” He offers, reaching down to touch his toes.

He can hear his brother open his mouth, likely ready to refuse, but Lila beats him to the punch.

“I’ll come too, we need to find that briefcase so we can fix this shit-show.” She says, voice coming out as more of a grumble than anything.

It’s clear how exhausted they all are, how the days have melded into one long stretch of time. Klaus plans to hibernate for a long time when this is all over. Whatever universe he’s in, he’s taking the longest fucking nap in the world.

  
  


* * *

Five wakes to a dark room. He twists his head, Diego’s gone. He scans the blackness of the room. No one’s there. He tries to calm his racing heartbeat at the feeling of someone, something watching him. His eyes flit across the room once more, he gasps when he notices someone sitting in the chair in the far corner of the room.

“Diego?” He calls, voice scratchy.

He squints, trying to see through the darkness.

“Hey, Five.” The voice rasps. 

Five’s eyes widen as he attempts to scramble back in his bed with his good hand. 

“Clever little trick, isn’t it?” The voice asks, suddenly morphing into a feminine one.

Red heels click on the floor as the person stands.

“Number Five!” The voice shouts, stalking towards the bed, heels gone.

His father’s monocle flashes in the darkness.

The face twists once more, settling into the one that’s plagued Five’s nightmares for months.

“Theo.” He croaks, attempting to push himself off the other side of the bed.

“You’re not being a good boy, are you?” The voice purrs, stepping up to the side of the bed. 

Five reaches for his powers, he jolts as he feels electrified instead. His vision turns blurry, he can smell blood. He tries to twist away from the hand reaching for him. 

He screams for Diego as the hand grabs him, pulling him across the bed and down to the floor. He can’t catch himself, left arm hitting the ground hard. He chokes out a sob. He stares up at the face as it morphs, its lips quirking into a predatory smile. He tries to push himself away, but a hand reaches out grabbing his ankle. He begs Diego to save him as he’s ripped across the dark floor. 

Suddenly he’s falling through his own wormhole. Lightning swirls around him. Thunder claps echo in the distance. He looks up, Theo’s following him down the rabbit hole. Eyes burning a hole through him as he sinks lower. Hands reach out for him again and he feels darkness wrapping around him, choking him.

He gasps, reaching up for the tendrils around his neck. He drops, braces himself to hit the ground. He falls into his bed instead, scrambling away from the arms around him.

“Five, Five!” He hears a voice whisper. 

It’s not Harold’s or The Handler’s or Reginald’s or Theo’s.

He blinks, twisting in the embrace. Diego’s watching him with wide, worry filled eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe.” Diego mumbles, reaching out and wiping the tears streaming down Five’s face. 

Five shakes his head as a cold sweat rolls down his back.

“I’m not, they’re...they’re just gonna keep coming for me.” He cries, pulling the blanket up to hide his tear-stained face.

“Hey, Five. Five.” Diego says softly, pulling the blanket down.

“No one is coming for you. And if someone was, I’d kill them.” Diego promises, gathering his brother back into his arms. “I won’t leave your side until you feel safe again, okay?” 

“What if I never feel safe again?” Five asks, shaking in Diego’s embrace.

“Then I’ll never leave your side.” Diego whispers.

Five is quiet for a moment. Diego closes his eyes. He’s dead tired, could probably sleep for the next three days. He blinks his eyes back open at the sound of Five taking a deep breath.

“Thank you...Dad.” Five mumbles, word coming out as if he’s testing it, as if he’s uncertain if the word is too much. 

Diego hugs him tighter, small smile tugging at his lips.

* * *

“You know, Ben,” Klaus starts as he drags their father’s dead body out from where it was hidden in the office. “This wasn’t your fault.”

Ben blinks up at his brother as he hefts Raven up from the ground. 

“Didn’t think it was.” Ben says with a shrug.

“Okay. Then explain why you’ve been cowering like a dog that shit all over the house.”

Ben grimaces at the description, fixing his brother with an unenthused glare.

“Seriously, you’re acting like you’ve got something shoved up your ass and not in a good way.”

Ben sighs, dropping the woman back to the ground.

“You have no idea how I feel right now.” Ben grumbles, folding his arms across his chest.

Klaus drops their father’s body next to Raven’s and steps up into his brother’s space.

“Then explain it to me.”

Ben shakes his head, turning away.

“You wouldn’t understand.” He says, tone akin to a moody teenager.

“Try me. I’m sure any explanation is better than you just acting like an asshole for no reason while our little brother is sitting in the hospital.”

Ben’s back turns rigid.

“Look, Ben, you can’t be faulted for what happened to Five. You didn’t know better and you helped when it mattered the most.”

Ben scoffs at that, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, right, some help I was.” He mutters, kicking the floor.

“If you hadn't changed, Diego and Five would be long gone, helping your teammates with god knows what.”

Ben twists around, annoyance clouding his face.

“I didn’t change because I’m a good person or some shit like that, Klaus. I was forced to when I remembered everything.”

“It doesn’t matter why, it just matters that you did.” Klaus says easily, eyes scanning his brother’s frustrated face.

“And look where that got us. Five will never be the same again because of me. If I’d figured it out sooner…”

“Ben, there is one person to blame here...and he’s dead.” Klaus motions to their father’s body.

Ben cringes, looking away.

“It doesn’t matter, he’s still gonna hate me.” Ben says with a shrug.

“If you remembered everything then you know how much that kid loves us. After everything we’ve put him through...I don’t think he could ever hate you.”

“I hate me.” Ben whispers, dropping his head.

Klaus reaches out, settling a hand on Ben’s arm. Ben looks up at his brother just as Lila barges into the room.

“Found the fucking briefcase.” She growls, throwing the item onto the ground. 

The middle of it is missing, a large burnt hole through it. A hole that could have only been made by one thing, a laser.

“Shit, what does that mean?” Klaus questions, patting Ben’s arm as a promise to talk later.

“Means we aren’t going back to the past to fix our mistakes. Means you’re all stuck in this timeline.”

“What about you? What about your girlfriend?” Klaus asks, hands clenching at his sides.

“I met Halle in the present day, in London. I doubt what you all changed reached London.”

Klaus nods, his boyfriend’s face flashing through his mind. He can tell Ben knows exactly what he’s thinking by the way he stares at him. Klaus tries to smile at his brother, but fails miserably.

_Klaus is sitting on the couch in his office. He’s waiting for his usual - Mrs. Henderson. He raises his hand, checking his watch. The door opens as soon as he drops his wrist back to his lap. A man peers into the room, dark eyes squinting when they settle on Klaus’s face. Klaus gulps as he checks the guy out from his curly dark hair down to his dress shoes._

_“Are you ‘The Seance’?” The man questions._

_Klaus nods, throat suddenly dry. The man slips all the way into the room, shutting the door behind himself._

_“You don’t look like Mrs. Henderson.” Klaus remarks sarcastically, his voice shaky._

_“I’m her son. I’ve been begging her to stop wasting money on this bullshit but she claims you’re the real deal. Figured I’d find out for myself.”_

_Klaus reels at that, blinking in a quick succession._

_“Uh-okay.” He chuckles, motioning for the man to take a seat on the couch._

_The man stays standing, folding his arms over his chest._

_Klaus shrugs, looking to the left of the man to find the ghost of Mrs. Henderson’s youngest son. The boy is staring up at his brother longingly. Klaus had never noticed it before, but the kid almost reminds him of Five._

_He gulps as he turns his attention to the man who’s now looking between him and the spot the ghost is standing._

_“I’m Klaus, and you are?” He greets, sticking out his hand._

_The man hesitantly grabs his hand and says, “Eli.”_

_Klaus fingers twitch when the handshake ends, hand suddenly cold._

Klaus blinks himself out of the memory, fond smile settling on his face.

“Did you hear me?” Lila questions, suddenly closer than Klaus remembers.

He shakes his head exaggeratedly, hair flipping back and forth.

“I’m leaving for London, I need to know that Halle’s okay. Tell the others I said ‘goodbye.’”

“Of course.” Klaus says, reaching a hand out.

Lila easily accepts it, shaking his hand. She smiles at the brothers.

“Got any money lying around or shall I rumor someone?”

* * *

The sun shines through the windows as Diego wakes. He yawns and attempts to stretch. His arm is numb behind his brother’s shoulder. He twitches his fingers, sharp needle-like sensations pricking him. He sighs, glancing around the room. Luther’s asleep in one of the chairs. Vanya is asleep on the floor, leaning against the table. And Allison is wide awake, staring at him from where she’s standing against the wall.

“Congratulations.” She says softly, stepping up to the end of the bed.

“What do you mean?” Diego croaks, reaching up with his free hand to rub the sleep from his eyes.

“I heard your conversation last night.”

Diego suddenly turns bashful, an “oh” his only answer.

“Five’s lucky to have someone like you.” She says with a gentle smile.

Diego glances down at Five, who’s still fast asleep against him

“Nah, I’m the lucky one.” He whispers.

Allison steps over to Diego, reaching out to pat his leg. They both turn as the door opens. Klaus and Ben step into the room, the smell of greasy food wafting into the room. Diego’s stomach grumbles in response.

“Got us some breakfast!” Klaus whisper-shouts, tiptoeing across the room. 

He pulls food out of the bag, handing it out to his two siblings that are awake. Luther and Vanya seem to simultaneously awake at the smell of food, quickly standing to get some. Five wakes seconds later as Diego attempts to gently remove his arm to eat. 

“Fivey, you’re awake!” Klaus remarks with a wide smile.

He offers his little brother a donut. Five raises his left arm before his face drops in realization. He lowers his arm, reaching out with his right hand instead. He silently stares down at the donut in his hand. The siblings are quiet too, unsure of how to recover from that.

A nurse enters the room, breaking the awful silence.

“Good Morning everyone, I’m Nurse Elizabeth. I’m on shift for the next twelve hours and I’m just here to change Mr. Hargreeves’s bandages.“ She says, holding up the items in her hand.

“Want us to leave, buddy?” Luther offers between chewing food.

Five nods, handing his uneaten donut back over to Diego. The siblings nod all standing. Diego moves to get off of the bed but Five grabs his arm again.

“Not you.” He whispers, eyes scanning his brother’s face as if he expects resistance.

“Okay.” Diego says with a small smile.

He moves across the room to set the food down before he returns to Five’s side. The nurse takes a seat closest to Five’s left arm. She slowly starts to unravel the gauze. Five diligently looks up at the ceiling. 

“This is a great way for you to learn how to do this.” Nurse Elizabeth suggests, glancing up at Diego.

Diego nods, focusing even harder as the nurse works. His brother starts to wiggle, attempting to move out of reach. He quickly grabs Five’s hand, tightly holding it. Five’s eyes remain fixed upwards. The nurse works swiftly, not wasting any time in replacing the bandages.

“Alright, all done. You did a great job, sweetheart.” The woman praises as she collects the trash.

She walks across the room to dispose of it before giving the siblings a soft smile.

“You let me know if you need anything.” She offers as she heads out of the room. 

As soon as the door clicks shut, the tears start falling down Five’s face as he blinks up at the ceiling. Diego curses, pulling his brother to him. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He whispers, the sound of the door reopening behind him.

The rest of their siblings are around the bed in a flash, pulling Five and Diego into another group hug. Murmurs of encouragement and love echo through their embrace. Five’s eyes shut tightly as he clenches his hand in Luther’s shirt.

* * *

After finally getting some food and water down, Five’s asleep again. The siblings stand around the room exhausted.

“God, what I’d give for my own bed right now.” Vanya murmurs as she lowers herself to the ground.

“Oh, shit, that reminds me.” Klaus startles himself back awake. “Lila’s gone, left for London.”

“What? Did she take the briefcase?” Diego questions.

“The briefcase was destroyed.” Ben answers simply.

The siblings look between each other, all wondering what this means for them. Klaus sighs as he reaches up to rub his face.

“Which means we’re staying here, in this timeline.” He adds with a grimace.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Panic Attack

“Will you tell me what’s going on now?” Five questions, hair dripping as he steps out of the steam-filled bathroom.

“What do you mean?” Diego asks as he looks up from the pamphlet he was reading. 

The doctor had come in earlier to check on Five, give him more medication, and give them pamphlets to start looking into physical therapy. 

“You know what I mean...why’d everyone leave?”

“Oh…” Diego says, setting the pamphlet down on the chair. “Come here, your hair is drenched still.”

Five pads across the room to where Diego’s leaning against the bed.

“It’s hard with this.” Five mumbles, raising his left arm that’s wrapped in a plastic cover.

“I’m sure it is.” Diego whispers, taking the towel from his brother’s hand.

He reaches out, rubbing the towel against Five’s hair. When he feels like his brother’s hair is sufficiently dry, he settles the towel around the boy’s shoulders and uses both of his hands to squish his brother’s cheeks.

“You know I’m proud of you right?” 

Five blinks up at his brother for a moment before pulling away, bashful.

“Don’t make me regret saying it.” Five quips, twisting further away.

“Hey! Don’t wound me like that.” Diego moans, dramatically grasping at his shirt above his heart.

“Whatever.” Five says, rolling his eyes despite the fond smile twitching at his lips. 

He heads back into the bathroom, setting the towel on the hangar. He glances at the mirror in passing. It’s foggy but he can still make out most of his features. The dark bags under his eyes stick out against his pale, sickly skin tone. He sighs, quickly looking away and stepping back out of the bathroom. 

He finds Diego lounging on the bed flicking through channels. 

“Hey, you should shower,” Five starts softly before adopting his signature sarcastic tone. “You stink.”

Diego hums, patting his lip with his finger, as if in deep consideration.

“Fine,” He finally says. “But I’m not doing it because you told me to. I’m the dad, remember?” 

Five tries to contain his smile at that, lowering his head to hide behind his bangs. Diego ruffles his hair as he passes him to enter the bathroom. 

Five sighs as the door shuts. He waits a moment until he’s sure he can hear the water running and then he moves away from the door to the other side of the room. He shakes his arm out, trying to release the jitters. He stretches his neck and wiggles his fingers. He reaches deep inside himself for that familiar, comforting feeling. It doesn’t come. He pulls harder, focusing entirely on the sensation of blue. Nothing.

“Fuck!” He shouts, slamming his fist into the wall.

The word reverberates through his head louder as the all encompassing fear that he’s permanently lost his powers grips him. The only thing that’s ever given him a semblance of safety. As many times as they had failed him, he still knew they were there. Still felt comforted when they wrapped around him like a blanket. Still felt like he’d at least have the chance to protect himself, to jump away to safety. 

_They won’t even need to weaken you, won’t need a taser or handcuffs. You’re screwed. They’re gonna find you and there’s nothing you can do to escape it._

He falls against the wall, hugging his left arm to his chest. His hand trembles where it grips his other shirt sleeve. His heart thuds loudly in his chest, blood pounding in his ears. He falls against the wall, sucking in a shuddering breath. His throat turns dry as he slides down the wall to the ground. His hand tightens as he starts to hyperventilate. His vision turns blurry, the only thing he can hear are his own sharp pants. Black spots dance across the room. He squeezes his eyes shut tight as he counts to ten, picturing the numbers in his head. 

_It’s okay. Everything’s okay. You don’t know that it’s permanent._ He holds onto that thought. _It’s not permanent._ He fervently promises himself as he sucks in a deep breath. He blinks. Diego’s crouched in front of him, eyes wide and eyebrows drawn in concern.

“I’m o-okay.” He croaks past a shaky exhale.

Diego scans his face, clearly not believing him. 

“Can I touch you?” He asks gently, shirt wet as if he’d wasted no time shoving it back on, as if he’d known.

Five nods with a sigh. Diego reaches under his arms, pulling him up to a stand. He helps settle him back onto the bed. 

“Thank you.” Five whispers, curling into himself embarrassed.

“What triggered it?” Diego asks softly, getting into the bed next to his brother.

“I’m okay.” Five repeats. 

Diego nods, eyes remaining on his brother for a moment longer.

“We should probably get new clothes, huh? I don’t know if I’m any less stinky than before showering.”

Five barely chuckles through his breathlessness, unfurling himself as he settles against the pillows.

“Hey, it is okay if I change your bandages?” 

Five nods, warily watching his brother as he walks across the room to collect the materials. Diego returns, sitting back on the bed crisscross applesauce. 

“Alright, kiddo.” He whispers, holding a hand out. 

Five drops his arm in his brother’s grasp. Diego carefully begins to remove the plastic wrapping.

“Showing next: I Heard a Rumor.”

Five and Diego both go still, heads twisting in slow motion towards the television.

“You heard that too, right?” Diego questions, eyes wide.

Five nods, staring at the TV.

* * *

Klaus and Ben are walking down the sidewalk, monumental silence stretching between them.

Klaus suddenly turns left, crossing the street. Ben jogs to catch up. 

“Hey, I thought we were going to the library?” Ben questions as he follows Klaus towards a pond.

Klaus ignores him, continuing down the path. He leads them to a bench, which he unceremoniously drops into. Ben stares at him for a moment but Klaus doesn’t look at him, purposefully keeping his eyes past his brother. Ben sighs, sitting down on the bench.

“I’m guessing this is you forcing me to talk?” Ben grumbles, folding his arms across his chest.

“If you want to.” Klaus says softly with a shrug.

He keeps his eyes on the water a few feet in front of them. There’s some ducks swimming about. He watches as one dives, likely attempting to catch a fish.

“I hate birds.” Ben finally says.

Klaus turns, quirking a brow. Ben sighs, looking down at his lap. He takes a moment to just breathe. Klaus stays a silent presence.

“I...it’s hard. There’s these two pieces of me and they...they don’t fit together, they’re telling me two very different things. There’s this part of me that’s relieved to see you all and then there’s this part of me that...when I see Five, I...I see the reason for everything. I see a problem that needs to be...contained.” Ben’s face twists into agony at his own words.

He shakes his head, stray tear dropping to his pants.

“I have these two different lives that have been shoved together into one and I just...it’s hard to know how to feel, what to do. One part of my life has been destroyed almost completely, everything and everyone I knew is now dead and then there’s this new other life that I don’t know how to accept.”

Klaus gulps, eyes firmly planted on his brother’s face.

“I don’t know how I’m going to survive in a world that was made for a different me.”

Klaus reaches out, grabbing his brother’s hand. 

“This world is different for all of us now. You won’t be going through this alone. I know it’s scary, I know it’s confusing but you’re still my brother, doesn’t matter what version you are. You stuck by my side for all those years, whether by choice or not,” Klaus tearfully chuckles at that. “I’m gonna stick by yours.”

Ben looks up from his lap to his brother, tears now freely falling. Klaus pulls him into a tight hug.

“What’s with this family and hugs?” Ben grumbles, although his arms tightening around his brother tells a different story.

* * *

“Do you think we’re actually going to find anything?” Vanya asks as they step through the automatic doors.

“I don’t know...this is the best place to start.” Luther says with a shrug as he follows Vanya over to the library computers.

They sit in the chairs next to each other and Vanya presses the button to start the computer.

“Do you think Five could get us out of here again?” Luther ponders, playing with a string on his pants.

“He doesn’t have his powers anymore, right?” Vanya answers absentmindedly as she shakes the mouse.

“How could we know for sure?” Luther wonders, eyes flicking up to the computer screen as it blinks.

“I don’t know, where would he even take us?”

“Back to the 1960s so we can rumor Dad into forgetting about us, that’d fix everything, right? He’d still adopt us so our lives wouldn’t change.” Luther says, mind already piecing together a plan.

Vanya hums at the thought as she clicks the guest login.

“What if we just don’t exist here?” She wonders, looking between the screen and her brother.

Luther purses his lips at that, he hadn’t considered that.

“You think we’re in a parallel universe rather than just an alternate one?”

Vanya glances at her brother as if she hadn’t expected him to know the difference.

“I don’t know.” She admits, turning back to the screen.

She goes to type her name into the search bar before realizing it’s fruitless.

“My name wouldn’t be Vanya Hargreeves.” She mumbles, leaning back in her chair in thought.

“Uh...try Anna Downey.” Luther offers, attempting to act natural as he motions to the computer.

Vanya raises a brow but types the name in nonetheless. Pictures of a woman with red hair pop up on the screen. 

_Anna Downey is an American singer-songwriter, most known for her 2016 hit “Shadows.”_

“Is this…?” Vanya starts.

Luther’s eyes are glued to the screen as he leans in to get a better look.

“That’s her.” He whispers, “That’s the love of my life.”

Sissy’s face flashes through Vanya’s head. She feels an ache in her chest as she tries to push the memories down. 

“I don’t think this is gonna help us much, Luther.” Vanya mumbles.

Luther ignores her, taking the mouse and scrolling.

* * *

Allison stands at the pay-phone, anxiety coiled in her chest. Her fingers shake against the receiver. The phone rings as her free hand twists the cord. She gulps, attempting to calm her erratic breathing.

“Hello?” A voice says on the other line.

A voice she thought she’d never hear again.

“Hi, uh- is this Patrick?” She asks, although she knows it is.

“Yes, who is this?” 

“It’s Allison.” She answers softly, fingers tightening around the cord.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I know an Allison.” Patrick says, voice guilty.

“No-you...you have to know me, what about Claire?” She questions, phone shaking in her hand.

“I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t know a Claire. Have a nice day.”

The line drops. Allison stands still for a moment, trembling. She lowers the phone, clutching it to her chest. Her lip twitches as tears fill her eyes. She shakily sets the phone done. She drops to a crouch, both hands reaching up to tightly cover her mouth as she sobs.

* * *

“And now, back to ‘I Heard A Rumor.’”

Five and Diego’s eyes are glued to the television screen. Allison walks into the courtroom, the place going wild with cheers and clapping. There’s dramatic music as the defendant enters the room next, there’s booing. The whole show is obviously dramatized and scripted and yet the brothers cannot stop watching it.

“I’m guessing the reason why they left has something to do with this?” Five mutters, eyes flickering over to his brother.

Diego rips his eyes from the screen to face his brother. Diego takes a moment, trying to think of a way to phrase his words without making Five feel like he needs to take blame.

“We uh-Lila found the briefcase, the one she used to get you both back here. It was destroyed. We think that means we’ll probably have to stay in this timeline. They were leaving to research about this world, to figure out if we exist here or not but clearly we do.”

“What?” Five questions, eyes wide.

_No briefcase. No powers. They’re screwed._

“Yeah-they were hoping things didn’t change.” Diego says, although the longer they’re here the less hopeful he becomes. 

A thought suddenly hits him as he hears Allison’s voice. 

“Does this mean there’s another me running around?”

“No,” Five shakes his head. “That’s not how my abilities work. If I jumped us to the future, our consciousness would have rewritten whatever version of us was here. But I’m still wondering how I could have possibly successfully jumped us to begin with. I screwed up just jumping myself before.”

“Well-I...I assume you had time to practice.” Diego mumbles with a wave of his hand.

He desperately doesn’t want to tell Five about this, especially right now.

“Time to practice? What do you mean?”

The door banging open interrupts their conversation. Allison’s face is red and tear stained.

“Five, you need to fix this right now.” She cries, pointing a shaky finger at her brother.

“Allison, what are you talking about?” Diego asks, scrambling out of the bed to head to his sister.

“He-he needs to take us back, he needs to fix this.” She chokes out, hands shaking at her sides.

Diego glances back at his brother who’s staring wide-eyed. He quickly opens the door, leading Allison out of it.

“What’s going on?” He asks softly as the door shuts, hand touching his sister’s arm.

Allison steps back out of his reach.

“Claire’s gone.” She says, voice rough from crying. “Claire’s gone and it’s his fault.”

She points at the door.

“If he-if he hadn’t ran away, none of this would have happened!” She shouts, garnering the attention of some of the nurses down the hall.

Diego flinches at the words, but keeps his expression soft.

“Allison, I’m so sorry about Claire.” He says, holding back any arguments.

He knows this isn’t Five’s fault and he knows his sister knows that. But, grief has a funny way of making you say things you don’t mean. He aches for his sister and her heartbroken expression.

“My daughter is gone, Diego. Forever.” Her voice turns hard, eyes distant.

Diego opens his mouth, trying to piece together something to say, anything that could bring his sister a sliver of comfort. Allison turns away, shaking her head and quickly walking down the hallway, shoving past Luther and Vanya who had just come up behind her. 

“It’s Claire.” Diego whispers as an answer to his siblings' confused faces.

Vanya curses, chasing down the hall after their sister. 

“Fuck, everything’s gotten so messed up.” Diego mumbles, watching as Vanya pushes past the doors.

Luther nods, setting a hand on Diego’s shoulder. Diego reaches up with his fingers to massage the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache steadily forming. The pain in his back is also returning with a vengeance. When the doctor had come in earlier to visit Five, she’d explained that Diego’s xray came back normal, his back was just swelling and bruised. Five had given him the meanest look he could muster, yelling at him after she’d left for not telling him. She’d given him ibuprofen then but now it’s starting to wear off.

“Should we?” Luther questions, motioning to where their sisters disappeared.

“I think maybe we should give her a moment alone with Vanya.” Diego says softly. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through.”

At that, Diego cringes, hoping Five hadn’t heard their conversation. He opens the door, Five’s no longer on the bed. He and Luther enter the room.

“Five?” Diego calls, peeking into the open bathroom.

Luther walks over to the bed, checking the other side of it and under it. He shakes his head at Diego, who’s expression turns to one of open terror.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning I will be going out of town again on Thursday and will be gone the weekend. I'm hoping to get at least one more update out before then but just letting yall know!

“If he-if he hadn’t ran away, none of this would have happened!”

Five flinches at the words.

_It’s true. You have to fix this. This is your fault._

Five stumbles away from the bed, guilt coiling in his chest. He’s not an idiot, he’d already known this was his fault. Everything always leads back to him. Ben’s death, the apocalypse, and now whatever the hell he did to change the timeline. Even the Sparrow Academy had blamed him for what happened, so clearly Allison isn’t an outlier and Diego didn’t dispute her claim so that’s two for two. Or rather ten for ten if he includes the Sparrow Academy and Reginald. There’s too much evidence this is all on him, Dolores wouldn’t be able to contradict the claim even if she was still here.

_You’re right. It’s your fault. Do something about it._

Five’s fingers twitch as he forces himself to ignore the words being exchanged outside, to instead focus on his powers. He knows they’re still there somewhere, if he could just reach them.

He attempts to keep the frustration at bay when that familiar feeling doesn’t rise. He grits his teeth, utilizing the same discipline he’d had to evoke to form the wormhole. 

Suddenly he feels it, a twinge. A small tickle deep inside him. He latches onto it, bringing it forward. He feels the static energy coat his fingertips, power coursing up his arms. He can feel it flow back down his left arm, momentarily stopping at his wrist, as if not expecting the absence of a hand. It wiggles further, phantom brushes against his missing fingertips. He pulls tighter, attempting a spatial jump. He disappears from the room. As he lands, his eyes shut tightly, pain coursing. His molecules feel rearranged. His chest feels caved in, as if someone had thrown a sledgehammer at him. His heart is racing, his palms are sweaty. His legs feel like jelly as he falls to his knees. The familiar scent hits him all at once - the ash. His eyes rip open. The apocalypse is laid out bare before him. 

“No.” He whispers, pulling himself up from the ground.

He immediately falls back to his knees, hand reaching up to grasp at his shirt. The pain is debilitating. He falls over retching. He chokes on his bile, tears pricking at his eyes. He coughs as he empties his stomach. 

He falls almost flat into the dirt, just barely missing his own vomit. He tries to breath but it feels like a hand is around his throat again, like he’s swallowing a spoonful of the dirt his hands are now caked in. 

His eyes catch on a familiar pile of debris, his chest shudders, heart skipping beats. He digs his fingers into the dirt, pulling himself across the ground. His left arm drags, he has to blink through the onslaught of agony in the limb. 

He can already see some of his siblings’ bodies strewn about, Diego’s dark hair sticks out like a sore thumb. He knows it’s him, can feel it in his bones. He falls back flat onto the ground, pain encompassing. His hand moves from where it was dug in the dirt to grab at his head. He feels like his brain is melting, like he’d been placed in a microwave. The sounds in his head support the theory, the low ringing steadily becoming louder. 

Suddenly, he’s blinded. He covers his eyes, chin resting on the ground.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

His eyebrows scrunch at the voice. 

“Theo?” He whimpers, voice so scratchy he barely recognizes it as his own.

Theo’s gonna kill him for real this time, he can’t fight back. He has no energy, it’s gonna happen again. 

He drops his hand, desperately trying to orient himself, trying to push himself up from the ground. He reels at his surroundings. He’s in a hospital room, lying on the floor. Diego’s hovering over him, horror etched on his face.

“Oh.” Five whispers, it’s the only thing he can get out.

The pain is about the only thing he hadn’t imagined.

“Oh, Jesus, Five. Thank God no one was in here.” Diego cries, hand raised as if he’s unsure of what to do.

“I’m-I’m sorry.” Five mumbles.

His stomach rolls. He twists his head, the throwing up hadn’t been in his imagination either. He cringes as he turns back. Diego’s gone, he can hear his footsteps across the floor. He returns with some tissues in his hand. He gently rolls Five over, holding his bandaged arm to keep it from further hitting against the floor. He pulls his younger brother up into his arms and makes quick work of cleaning the mess around his mouth. When he’s done, he just stares at Five for a moment, expression unreadable. He moves Five back to lying flat on the floor and stands, moving across the room to clean up the rest of the mess. Five lays on the floor, staring up at the bright lights. After a few moments, Diego’s face is back, now clouding the lights. He’s biting his lip nervously. He bends down, arm under Five’s back and another under his knees. He lifts slowly, back protesting loudly. Five cries out as he stands.

“What's..." Diego stops for a moment, feeling his stutter making its ruthless appearance. He steadies himself, forcing himself to separate from the situation. "What's wrong?” 

Five lets out a shuddering breath, hand clenching in his shirt. Despite his aching brain, his mind races with new realizations.

“Five, please ta-ta-ta...please ta-talk to me.” 

Five blinks up at his brother, barely hearing him. He looks away as he starts to mutter to himself.

“It’s because of my hand, everything’s off now. It’s-it’s not like working with a growth exponential, losing it so suddenly, it’s thrown off everything. Years of practice mean nothing now.” Five says, shaking his head against Diego’s arm.

He doesn’t register his brother not listening to him, instead explaining the situation to the nurses as they leave the room. Something about Five disappearing from their room. Something about a panic attack.

“My calculations, they’re all wrong. Everything’s wrong. It’ll take years before I can be sure enough to travel back. We don’t have years. We’re screwed. We’re so screwed. It’s my fault. Everything’s my fault. I’m useless. I’m a disappointment.”

“Five.”

The stern voice breaks him out of his reverie. He’s back in his own hospital bed now, Diego once again hovering over him. Diego gulps, steadying himself before he speaks.

“Five, I need you to look at me.”

Five listens, languidly turning his attention up to his brother.

“What hurts?” 

Five’s hand clenches in his shirt tighter at the question. Diego takes that as his answer, reaching out to pull up Five’s shirt. The boy whimpers and Diego’s hand stills. 

“Five?” Diego starts, looking into his brother’s eyes. “Can I check your chest?”

Five gulps but nods shakily. Diego pulls the shirt the rest of the way up. There’s no bruising, nothing out of the ordinary. Diego gently sets a hand on his brother’s chest. Five cries out at the touch. Diego immediately removes his hand, lowering the shirt back into place, anxiety pooling in his stomach.

“Five, what happened?”

Five’s eyes roll into the back of his head, face scrunching at the pain radiating through his skull. He blinks at the feeling of the back of Diego’s cold hand against his forehead. 

“Did you try to jump?” Diego asks softly, brushing Five’s hair to the side.

“It’s my fault...I have to get us out of here.” Five mutters, trying to push himself up in the bed.

Diego gently pushes his shoulder down and sits on the edge of the bed.

“It’s not your fault. Allison was just upset, she knows it’s not your fault too.” 

Five shakes his head, looking away from his brother.

“You have to promise me you won’t do that again.” 

Five squints at his brother as if he’s being challenged.

“At the very least, until we know why it’s hurting you and how to fix it.” Diego corrects, not backing down at Five's expression.

Five continues to glare up at his brother. Diego sighs in response.

“Five, I found you crawling on the floor surrounded by your own vomit, not to mention you just disappeared without telling me. I have lost you too many times, I will not let it happen again.” Diego promises, voice stern but eyes soft.

Five looks away, feeling both guilty and frustrated.

“Look, it’s not just a word to me okay?” Diego starts.

Five turns his attention back to his brother, eyebrow quirked in interest.

“Acting like I’m your dad, it’s not some moral righteousness type of thing for me. I care about you and I care about what happens to you. I will protect you until my dying breath.”

Five opens his mouth to argue, but Diego stops him holding up a finger.

“I’m not done. I know this is new for you, it’s new for me too. But I’m willing to put in the work to keep you safe, whether that makes you hate me or not. Hell, I will literally put one of those backpack child leash things on you if it means keeping you safe.”

Five rolls his eyes unable to keep a small chuckle from escaping. Diego quirks his lip, but quickly drops it to turn serious once more.

“You’re not alone anymore, Five.” Diego says, eyes boring into his little brother’s green ones to ensure he’s listening. “That means you need to tell me before you try something dangerous like you just did. Do you understand?”

Five grits his teeth, arguing with himself if he should give in to Diego’s demands or not.

“Yes.” Five finally grumbles.

Authority’s always been quite an issue with him. But he supposes that can be equated to an abusive father always trying to tell him what to do. Diego’s different. Diego actually loves him.

“Wow, that was my first ever parent lecture. How was it?” Diego jokes, eyes twinkling.

“Mediocre.” Five retorts, maneuvering himself under the blankets.

“You seem to be more lucid.” Diego comments, tucking Five in.

“Yeah, my brain doesn’t feel like it’s frying anymore.”

Diego cringes, scanning his brother’s face. 

“I need you to re-explain what happened, you were talking way too fast for me to understand it earlier.”

“I just realized the reason my jump was screwed up, it’s because everything’s off now, the growth exp-”

Diego cuts him off at the sound of Luther’s voice outside the door.

“Do not tell anyone you used your powers.” Diego forces out quickly, eyeing his brother for a moment before twisting to face the door.

The door opens, Luther’s face peering inside. Luther sags in relief at the sight of his two brothers.

“Oh, thank God, you found him.” He says, stepping fully into the room.

“Where’d you go?” Luther asks, looking past Diego at his little brother.

“Went to find a vending machine.” Five answers with a shrug.

“You should tell us before you run off.” Luther chastises. “You could have gotten hurt.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Five snarls leaning up on his elbows in a failed attempt to look menacing.

Diego glances down at him with a raised brow.

“Glad to see you’re back to your pleasant self.” Luther mumbles, dropping down into a chair.

“I already lectured him.” Diego offers as an explanation for Five’s moodiness.

“Good. We don’t know what this world is like yet, could be dangerous.” 

Five looks down at the blanket at that, suddenly remembering why he’d been trying his powers to begin with. He got his siblings stuck here. And clearly whatever he did to mess up the timeline was bad, considering no one’s talking about it, at least not to him. 

_I’m gonna have to figure out a way to fix this mess._

He glances up at his brother who's talking to Luther, explaining the show he and Five had stumbled across. 

_Regardless of what Diego says._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have another multi-chapter fic in the works right now, but if you guys have any writing prompts you'd like me to consider for the future hit me up on tumblr @tenacioussurrender
> 
> I mostly vibe with Five & Diego content but will consider all requests!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me realizing how many things I still have to address before this story ends: *surprised pikachu face*
> 
> Chapter length is once again just my best guesstimation!

The next few days go by in a haze. Siblings are in and out of the hospital. Ben and Klaus come by to visit the most - bringing new clothes and food. Luther and Vanya spend a lot of their time trying to research their old/new lives - utilizing the new information on Allison and her TV show. Allison stays away from the hospital, grieving at the Academy. Vanya promises that Allison will be okay, that she just needs some distance, some time to accept things. Diego stays with Five the whole time, spending most of his time watching Allison’s cringey show and the news, hoping to find more details of this world and their lives. Five drowns most of it out - working through new calculations in his head, brain running rampant with an array of different numbers.

On the seventh day of their hospital stay, the doctor finally permits them to leave. She makes them promise to take good care of the limb and to look into prosthetics and therapy. They agree easily, both rather excited to leave the hospital. Or at least they both were until Five actually stepped outside, the realization hitting him just how permanent his loss of limb is. Ben picks them up from the hospital and the drive is silent - as stifling as it had been when they’d driven Five to the hospital the first time. They don’t have anywhere else to go at the moment so despite how Diego feels about it - they end up back at the Academy where the rest of their siblings have been staying as well. 

Stepping back into the house is like stepping into a nightmare for Five. He can almost see himself still lying on the ground, bleeding out, hand beyond repair. He can see his father manipulating him, using him and then a laser blowing through his head. He can see Number One’s smiling face, his condescending arm around him, his probably half-assed promise to let the rest of the Umbrella Academy survive after he’s killed Five. 

A gentle hand on the back pulls Five away from his thoughts. He looks up at Diego who smiles cautiously down at him.

“We won’t stay here long.” Diego promises.

The promise doesn’t quite reach his eyes, the uncertainty of the situation greater than any other they’ve faced before, even more uncertain than being thrown into the 1960’s. Speaking of which, Diego thinks, Five has gotten more bold with his questions on what happened to lead to the timeline changing so greatly. Diego’s not ready to tell him yet, in fact, he’s not so sure he’ll ever be ready. And he knows Five’s been acting suspicious - even more quiet than usual, withdrawn into his own head more often than not. Diego’s sure he knows his brother more than Five credits him, he can tell the kid still blames himself and is likely trying to figure out some way to go behind his older brother’s back. He knows he’s been working up some kind of plan, can hear him muttering numbers even in his sleep. But, rather than accusations, Diego vows to just keep a closer eye on the kid, even closer than before. Of course that’s harder to do than expected considering Five’s stubbornness and hatred of being coddled. It was different when he was grieving so deeply and openly, he’d actually wanted Diego to stay with him, he’d been scared and aching for the promise of safety. But now that he’s adjusting, or at least pretending to adjust, he’s fallen back to more of his older ways, his annoyance at being treated like the child he is. But, Diego supposes that’s how most teenagers probably are, especially teenagers that have been through hell and back more times than can be counted.

He watches as Five separates from him, walking through the house and looking around as if cataloguing all the differences he hadn’t noticed before.

“I’ll keep an eye on him too.” Ben says as if he’d read Diego’s mind.

Diego just now notices he’s still standing at the door next to his brother. He hums at Ben’s words. Frankly, he’s still having a difficult time trusting Ben and his supposed “transformation.” Diego believes people can change, but so quickly? He’s not so sure. That doesn’t affect how relieved he is that Ben’s alive, whether he’s the real Ben or not. 

“I know you don’t trust me and I don’t expect you to so soon,” Ben whispers, eyes scanning his brother’s face. “But just know that I’m gonna do everything I can to try to earn my place back in the family.” 

Diego nods, small smile gracing his lips. He leaves the entrance, following where Five had disappeared into the living room. His little brother is talking to Klaus who’s transporting things from other rooms into the living room.

“What’s going on?” Diego questions, eyeing the statues and other expensive looking things on the floor.

“Oh- well while you guys were in the hospital, we started collecting stuff from around the house to get rid of.” Klaus says, waving the item in his hand around “I mean we’re gonna need money, how do you think we bought you that sexy black v-neck?”

“I don’t know, kinda figured you stole it.” Diego remarks with a shrug.

“Sheesh, no faith in me brother. Nah...we did steal the socks though.”

Diego chuckles, shaking his head as he walks around the room, taking in the decorations he didn’t notice during the short time he’d been in the house since their return to 2019.

“I’m gonna use the bathroom.” Five says abruptly.

Diego watches as he leaves until he’s out of sight.

“You know you’re gonna scare him away if you keep hovering so much.” Klaus advises, wiping a statue with a dusting rag.

“What do you mean?” Diego questions, folding his arms across his chest in denial.

“The closer you watch him, the more you’re gonna miss.” Klaus comments, not taking his eyes off the object he’s cleaning.

“Can you be less cryptic? Please and thanks.”

“You think Five’s up to something so you’re leeching onto him.” Klaus says, initiating the sound of sucking like a leech. “You’re just gonna convince him even more to do whatever it is he’s thinking of doing.”

“And what do you suggest?” Diego questions, lowering his hands down to his hips. “I just let him roam free? He’s a kid with a newly amputated hand and a hell of a lot of PTSD. This world is evil and as strong as he may be, he’s an easy target.”

“I get that. Let some of us look after him too.” Klaus offers, finally looking up at Diego with sincerity. “You’ll sleep better at night.”

Diego shrugs, unwilling to accept that sometimes Klaus has pretty decent advice. He picks up one of the small statues, it’s a golden ball, also looks like some sort of planet, stuck to a wooden stand. He examines it, ignoring Klaus’s eyes on him.

“How’s Allison?” Diego finally asks, changing the subject as he gently sets the object back down.

“I think deep down she knew - back in Dallas, she'd told me how hard it had been when she first arrived, how she thought then that she’d never see Claire again. This is her second time grieving her daughter, doesn’t make it any easier.”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t.” Diego whispers, remembering how he’d felt when he thought he'd lost Five forever.

And he’d technically known him for less than a month at the time of his first disappearance.

* * *

Five doesn’t go to the bathroom. He heads upstairs instead, attempting to put some space between him and the area he’d almost decimated with a wormhole. 

_Wormhole._

Still a novel concept, even to him. He walks down the hallway, noticing the fighting techniques labeled on the walls. 

_At least some things stay the same._

He peeks into the rooms that used to be, in another universe, his siblings’ bedrooms. They’re all completely different from his siblings' old rooms, but none unique. They almost look prison-like - no decorations, no proof that anyone had ever lived in them. Even the beds are made military style, not a speck out of place. He travels down the hall, each room passing by. He comes to a stop, finding the door that would have been to Allison’s room shut. He exhales deeply, steeling himself as he reaches out to knock on the door. 

“Come in.” 

Five gulps at his sister’s tearful voice, but opens the door nonetheless. Allison’s lying on her back on the bed holding a photograph up. She glances over to the door, eyes widening when she notices her little brother. 

“Five.” She whispers, sitting up.

Her eyes are puffy and bloodshot. There are unshed tears remaining, along with trails of dried ones down her cheeks. She stands from the bed, stepping over to her brother. Five lowers his head, ready to accept whatever condemnations or anger his sister might have. Instead, he’s met with arms wrapping tightly around him. 

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it, I-I was just upset and I lashed out at you. I know none of this was your fault and you have nothing to fix, okay?” 

She pulls away from the hug, holding Five’s shoulders. She bends to his level, making sure he’s listening.

“It’s not your fault.” She repeats, eyes flickering between his guilty ones.

“I’m so sorry, Allison.” He whispers.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” She says, rubbing his shoulders.

Five can’t help but feel like that’s impossible. Like she’s just apologizing because maybe Diego told her he had a panic attack or something.

“Come sit with me.” 

She moves to sit back on the bed, picking up the photograph into her hands again. Five gingerly sits next to her, settling his hand into his lap. 

“This is me and my husband Ray. I know you didn’t really get to meet him, but he was a great man. The best. He helped me when I first thought I’d never see Claire again, when I first got to Dallas.” She says softly, showing her brother the picture.

“Dallas?” Five questions, eyebrows raised as he glances up at his sister.

He doesn’t remember Allison going to Dallas anytime recently and he definitely doesn't remember her ever mentioning a new husband. Allison’s eyes widen and her mouth shuts with a click.

“Uh-I mean…”

Allison blinks repeatedly, moving the picture out of view. She stumbles over some sort of explanation for a moment, mouth opening and closing. She finally shuts her mouth again, looking away from her brother.

“It is wrong of me to assume that you all wouldn’t keep things from me after everything with Dad?” Five asks bluntly, voice more tired than accusatory. 

“It’s something that Diego should probably be the one to tell you.” Allison says carefully. 

Five sighs loudly, flopping backwards to lay down fully on the bed.

“With the way you guys are acting, it’s like Ifreaking caused an apocalypse.” 

At Allison’s silence, Five blinks up at her. 

“Then again, I guess that would make sense why I would be at fault for timeline changes.” He registers, pushing himself back up.

His eyes flutter around the room, brain working hard to piece together what he’s missing.

“Five, maybe you should just leave it for right now, you’re still recovering.” 

Five ignores his sister as he stands. He glances at her nervous, teary face before leaving the room in a daze. 

He’s trying so hard to piece it together but everything’s conflicting in his head. He can’t put together how he could have possibly been the apocalypse’s catalyst. It was supposed to be Vanya not him, she’s the only one with powers capable of destroying the world.

_Wormholes._

Five stops in place at the realization. Reginald had claimed he’d made a wormhole before. But could he really have the power to destroy the entire world with a wormhole? The one he’d made before had been rather small, microscopic in comparison to a natural wormhole. 

If he wants an answer, he has to rely on one of his siblings to give it up. He considers his options. Diego’s too protective right now, he’d omit most of the story. Klaus probably doesn’t even know most of the story. Allison’s too upset to get a straight answer from. Vanya and Luther aren’t in the house right now. That leaves one person as his target - the same person he’d already been planning to target for other reasons. Ben’s acted strange for days, although Five assumes that’s fair considering he’s now basically two people in one. But, he’s been acting like he’s the one who cut Five’s hand open or like maybe he wants to cut Five’s hand open. Either way, guilt makes him an easy target to hopefully get answers from. Besides, he’d be the most knowledgeable about whatever happened considering he was likely on both sides of the situation.

Five heads back downstairs, searching for his brother. He ends up back in the living room where Diego and Klaus are still standing around, talking. 

“Where’s Ben?” Five asks.

His brothers both jolt at the sound of his voice before Klaus points to Reginald’s office. Five gives them a thumbs up and a fake smile before trotting over to the office. He slides the door open and slips in. Ben is sitting on the floor, papers surrounding him. His hair is all mused up as if he’d tugged at it and his face is deep in thought. He glances up at Five, stiffening when he notices him.

“What are you doing?” Five questions, reaching down to pick up one of the papers from the floor.

“I’m trying to figure out Reginald’s motives.” Ben offers, turning his attention back to the papers sitting on the floor in front of him.

Five reads the newspaper article in his hand. _November 22nd, 1963._

The majority of the paper talks about Kennedy’s assassination but lower near the bottom, something catches his attention. 

_Strange Activity Within FBI Building_

_FBI agent claims to have seen lightning inside the building._

“Uh-hey maybe you shouldn’t read that stuff?” Ben questions, moving the papers out of his way to stand.

He pulls the paper from Five’s hand before he can finish reading it. The boy’s jaw clenches at the action.

“Can you and I go talk somewhere private?” Five asks, trying his hardest to keep hostility from edging into his words.

Ben seems to seriously consider the question for a moment, as if weighing his options. He finally settles on nodding, lowering the paper back to the floor. Five leads his brother out of the office and across the living room. He can feel Diego and Klaus’s eyes on them but ignores it, heading outside. Ben follows him out, shutting the door behind himself. 

Five takes a moment to just look around the courtyard. In place of a statue of Ben, there’s a statue of Pogo. 

“Uh-Voodoo accidentally killed him.” Ben offers as an explanation.

Five gulps at that, trying not to imagine that crazed man’s face leering at him. 

“Accidently, huh?” Five mumbles, eyes fixated on the statue.

“Five, why’d you ask me out here?” Ben asks, dropping down onto the bench. 

Five lets out a deep breath, turning to face his brother. 

“I caused an apocalypse, didn’t I?” 

Ben sputters as if the question is the furthest from anything he’d expected to come out of his brother’s mouth.

“What are you talking about?” Ben questions, eyes landing anywhere but Five’s.

“No gaslighting necessary, it’s a yes or no question.” Five retorts, hand tightening into a fist at his side.

“I think you should ask Diego, not me.” Ben shrugs, eyes firmly planted on something past Five’s face.

“Okay, seriously?” Five grumbles, rolling his eyes. “What is with everyone telling me to ask Diego?”

“Well he’s like your...you guys are…” Ben waves his hand around, as if he’s allergic to the words.

“Yeah and that means I can’t trust him for an unbiased opinion.” Five says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, it’s none of my business, okay? My answer will probably be further biased than anyone else’s. I mean Five come on, you’re not naive, we kidnapped you.” Ben’s voice raises as his eyes finally fall on his brother.

“You didn’t know any better.” Five dismisses with a wave of his hand.

“And you think that absolves me?” Ben asks, gaze dropping down to his brother’s missing hand.

His jaw clenches and he wrings his hands in his lap.

“Yes, but we’re getting off topic.” Five says with an exaggerated sigh. “If you won’t tell me then I need you to do something else.”

Ben scans his brother’s face in a silent question.

“I need you to help me regain my powers.” Five mutters, fingers twitching.

“What? Why?”

Five fixes his brother with an unimpressed look, as if he’d expected more from him.

“So I can get us the hell out of here, what do you think?” He grumbles.

Ben is dumbfounded, but he guesses with what he knows about the kid, maybe he should have seen this coming.

“You just got out of the hospital less than an hour ago.” Ben says in exasperation. “Five, you can’t be serious.”

“I am and I need your help and your promise that you won’t tell anyone.”

Ben immediately disregards him with a, “No, nope, absolutely not.” 

“Ben, please. I need _your_ help.” Five begs, voice sincere.

He feels as desperate as he sounds, clinging to hope that he can turn this all around. That he can make up for whatever terrible thing he did. That he’ll deserve to be a part of his family. Ben just stares up at him for a moment, scanning his face as if looking for some sort of deception. 

“I...I’ll think about it.” Ben finally says, standing from the bench.

Five nods, accepting that answer. He knows if Ben’s at least considering it, then there's a high possibility he’ll actually help him, which is more than he had ten minutes ago. Now if only someone would tell him what the hell he did, so he can actually fully formulate a plan to fix it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright friends, we are really starting to wrap up! I've written most of the last few chapters, so they should be going up rather quickly within the next few days :)

Ben plops back down onto the floor in the middle of Reginald’s papers, mind running through a million scenarios. He finally settles on just two: one where he tattles on Five and Five says, “Fuck you, Ben. I hate you and wish you were dead” and the other where he doesn’t tattle on Five and Diego is the one who says, “Fuck you, Ben. I hate you and wish you were dead.” He decides that for now, instead of choosing one of two terrible options, he’ll just continue looking through Reginald’s things for clues. So far, he hasn’t found much, but he’s yet to open the signature journal. He has a feeling their father’s prized possession might expose some things. But something inside of Ben is scared to open the book, to even look at the sacred object that Reginald had always held dear. He pushes it aside, focusing on the papers instead. He’ll open it at some point, he knows, but not now.

“Guys, get in here now!” Vanya’s voice shouts from the living room.

Ben sighs, once again pushing himself up from the floor. He steps into the living room, all of his siblings, including Allison, are standing around. Allison has her arms hugged around herself and she keeps glancing between Five and Diego as if something else had happened within the thirty minutes Five had been home. Ben wouldn’t be surprised, the kid definitely invites trouble. He leans against one of the still standing support poles, awaiting whatever urgency Vanya needs to discuss.

“Okay, so you guys are not gonna believe this,” She starts, voice high in excitement. She looks up at Luther who’s standing next to her. “But, Luther and I found something crazy out.”

Ben glances over at Five who’s posture is now sharper and face is open with hope.

“So we did some digging,” Vanya says, smiling over at Allison who manages a weak smile herself. 

“People don’t care about normal people like me, so it took some time to find, but anyway what I’m trying to say is- Allison and I are sisters in this timeline too! The same people adopted both of us!” She finally spits out. 

The rest of the room seems to deflate at the admission. 

“Was kinda hoping you’d figured a way out of here.” Five mumbles.

The siblings all glance at him, Allison guiltily and Diego as if he’d caught Five red-handed.

“Ah-sorry, no, Five.” Vanya says awkwardly, rubbing her arm.

“This is still good news.” Luther adds. “We’re getting somewhere.”

Klaus nods, but the rest of the room doesn’t seem to agree. 

“Vanya, why don’t you and I talk more about this upstairs?” Allison suggests.

Vanya shrugs as if she’d expected everyone to be excited about the news. She follows Allison, leaving the room in silence.

“Hey, can we talk?” 

Ben glances over at Diego who’s addressing their little brother. 

_Thank God._

Ben thinks.

_Maybe Diego will get it out of him himself and I won’t have to do anything._

He slips away from the room and back to his investigation. 

* * *

Five sits at the kitchen table, watching Diego’s back as he makes sandwiches.

“So, is this an intimidation tactic, or are you actually gonna spit out whatever you have to say?” Five questions, leaning his head into his hand. 

“Intimidation tactic?” Diego chuckles, heading over to the table with the completed sandwiches. 

He offers one to Five who easily takes it and bites a large chunk out of it.

“I-just-I’m worried that you still think you need to hide things from me.”

Five quirks his brow at that as he chews. 

“Look, last time I thought I got through to you-I just- I know you’ve got some sort of plan and I don’t want you to hide things from me. I don’t want to risk something bad happening again.”

Five takes a long drag of water. He drinks loudly before setting the glass down with a clunk.

“I won’t hide things from you when you stop hiding things from me.” He finally says, not looking up at Diego as he takes another bite of his sandwich.

“I’m not hiding things from you just to hide them, okay? I-I’ll tell you at some point, if you really want to know. But, I just don’t think it’s the best right now.” Diego suggests, settling into the seat across from his brother.

“You think I can’t handle it.” Five accuses through a mouth-full of food.

“No, that’s not it.” Diego says, face pinching. “I just know how much it’s going to affect you and you’ve already been through so much.”

Five sets his sandwich down and waits a moment until his mouth is empty to speak again.

“Was it that bad?” He asks, voice wavering with hidden nervousness.

“Yes.” Diego answers honestly, fingers playing with the edge of the sandwich rather than eating it.

Five sighs, finally looking up at his brother.

“I don’t have anything planned.” He lies through his teeth.

At Diego’s expression, it’s clear he knows it too. Five has the decency to feel guilty as his hand settles around his cup.

“I guess I just thought, after everything we’ve been through, you trusted me now.” Diego mumbles, getting up from the chair without having touched his food.

He starts to leave the room, shaking his head.

“Okay, okay, Diego, wait.” Five calls, chair scraping as he twists in his seat.

Diego’s back stiffens, but he doesn’t turn to face his brother.

“I-I’m just trying to figure out a way to fix this.” Five finally admits.

“You don’t need to fix this, Five!” Diego’s voice is loud and frustrated as he twists around. 

Five shrinks under his brother’s irritated expression, mouth closing tightly.

“You-this isn’t your responsibility, okay? You are a child, despite what you may think. I’m the adult. I’m responsible for you and I’m responsible for fixing this situation, if it can even be fixed.”

“You’re not responsible for me!” Five shouts, slamming his fist on the table. 

“Yes I am!” Diego yells, voice matching his brother’s. “I don’t know how many mental gymnastics I have to do with you to prove to you that I care about you, Five. I’m not Dad, okay? I’m not going to let you just run out the door, I’m not gonna push you away or let you take blame for something that’s not your fault. I’m not him, okay?”

“I know you’re not.” Five argues, chest rising and falling quickly. 

Diego steps forward towards the table. Five flinches backwards in his seat. Diego’s face twists in hurt, shoulders dropping in defeat. 

“Then why are you acting like I’m gonna hit you?” Diego asks softly, hand reaching up to rub his tired face. 

“I-I can’t help it!” Five cries, twisting in his seat to drop his head into the crook of his arm on the table.

“I can’t control anything anymore.” Five mumbles tearfully.

He listens to Diego sitting back in his seat across the table. He feels a hand reach out and gently clasp his arm. He looks up, bangs falling into his eyes as he scans his brother’s apologetic face.

“I’m sorry, Five. It’s my fault for raising my voice.” Diego whispers, eyes wide with remorse.

“No, I shouldn’t be this weak.” Five angrily mutters to himself, staring down at the hand on his arm.

“Five, you haven’t had any of the time we’ve had to...work past what Dad did to us. You’re allowed to struggle, it’s okay. I’d be more worried if you didn’t. But, this is exactly why I don’t think you’re ready to hear about what happened before we jumped.”

Five shakes his head in response and opens his mouth to retort. Diego holds up his free hand.

“Look, give me a couple days.” Diego starts, a heavy sigh following his words. “A couple days of you relaxing and I’ll...I’ll seriously consider telling you.”

Five shrugs. It’s an acceptable compromise, but likely an impossible one.

“Diego, I cannot relax in this house.” Five says, hand tightening into a fist.

Diego pats his arm and assures him with a “I know it’s gonna be hard, but I promise you I’ll get us out of here as soon as possible.”

Five nods despite himself. He’s dying to know what happened, to free the constant question caged at the back of his mind. He supposes, however, after everything, the least Diego deserves is a few days.

* * *

Night comes crawling along quicker than Ben had expected. Of course, he’d have never known if it wasn’t for Five barging in and interrupting his forlorn stare directed towards Reginald’s journal. 

“What is it, Five?” Ben sighs, looking up at his brother. 

Five’s appearance is disheveled, as if he had never gone to sleep. He’s wearing the night clothes Ben and Klaus had bought him and he’s sleepily blinking at his brother. The long sleeves make him appear even smaller than he is.

“Did you decide?” Five asks in place of an answer.

Ben sighs even harder, stretching his neck. 

“I’m guessing you didn’t tell Diego.”

Five shakes his head, saying “nope” with a pop of the ‘p.’

“You didn’t give me much time,” Ben says softly. “Can’t you afford at least a few days of rest? You’ve been through a lot.”

“No, I can’t. I had a year to “rest” in the apocalypse. I think I can spare a few weeks of productivity, making sure you are all safe.”

Ben scoffs, a humorless chuckle escaping his mouth.

“You and I both know that was a bold faced lie.” He says, raising his eyebrows. “I remember everything, Five, you can’t trick me.”

“I’m not trying to trick-wait, you remember everything everything?” Five questions, eyes suddenly wide and hopeful.

Ben waits for a moment, wondering how much information is the right amount in this situation.

“Yeah-I remember everything, your childhood included.” 

“Oh.” Five says simply, face becoming blank.

“Look, I’ll help you,” Ben starts, already regretting the words as they tumble out of his mouth. “But the moment I feel it’s too dangerous or something goes wrong, I’m telling Diego. Understood?”

Five grits his teeth but nods nonetheless. He turns to step out of the room before looking back at Ben.

“You coming?” He asks with a raised brow.

“Seriously? Right now?” Ben questions, glancing around at the pile of papers on the floor.

“Yep, come on, Number One.” Five says with a wide smirk. “I’ve got things to do.”

Ben rolls his eyes but pushes himself up to his feet. His legs prickle with sleepiness.

“What time is it?” He wonders aloud.

“Probably like three a.m.” Five shrugs. “Had to wait until I was sure Diego was asleep.”

“Jesus, he’s gonna be so pissed if he finds out.” Ben sighs, stretching his neck.

Five hums as they head through the dark living room, past the accumulation of strange statues.

“So how do you suppose we go about this?” Ben questions as he follows his brother outside into the night.

The ground is only illuminated by the bright full moon as it hangs in the sky.

“I just need you to pay attention when I jump, tell me what you notice.”

Ben nods, folding his arms across his chest to fight off the slight chill in the air. He watches Five as he shakes out his hand and sucks in a deep breath. Ben scans his brother’s face, it transforms into an expression of deep concentration. His jaw clenches and his eyes are tightly shut. With a pop, he’s gone and reappears less than a foot away, dropping to the ground. He’s holding his stomach and trying but failing to keep himself from whimpering.

“What the hell was that? I told you the moment this seemed-” Ben trails off at Five holding his hand up in the air.

“I-I’m okay.” Five croaks, hand clenching his shirt as he tries to ride out the pain. “It’s not as bad as last time.”

“Last time?!” Ben whisper-shouts in exasperation.

“Yeah-yeah.” Five mutters, out of breath as he waves his hand in dismissal. “So did you notice anything?”

“Other than you crippling to the ground like you’ve been shot?” Ben sighs at the unimpressed look on Five’s face. “Yeah, it didn’t look like it normally does. It almost looked like you were being pulled in different directions, like you weren’t quite sure where you wanted to go.”

“Ah, that’s exactly how it felt.” Five mumbles, face scrunching as he pushes himself up from the ground.

“It’s because of my hand,” He says, raising his left arm. “My numbers are completely off. Before I just adjusted the logarithmic growth rate but now I’m dealing with an exponential decay.”

“That makes sense.” Ben agrees with a nod as he replays Five’s spatial jump in his head. He squints and points at his brother as he chastises him with, “But why the hell did you risk that again knowing what you know? You could have gotten lost or something.”

“I’m well aware.” Five snorts with a roll of his eyes. “I’m the one being ripped through time and space. But, maintaining a hypothesis means experimentation, you know this better than any of our other siblings.”

Ben’s mouth drops, this kid is something else. 

“Jesus, Five, no wonder you and Reginald never got along.” He softly chuckles, scanning his brother from head to toe.

“What do you mean?” Five questions, expression turning tight.

His right hand grips his left bicep and his stature turns sharp. It’s clear to Ben that Reginald affected his brother even more than he’d originally thought. The man had always been a douchebag - in both universes - but one common theme was his torturous treatment of Five. Reginald had always had it out for the kid, had targeted him since early on when they were all still children. He supposes never getting along was not quite the right way to put it.

“You’re extremely intimidating.” Ben says, voice coming out gentle.

Five smiles softly at that. Ben’s lips twitch into his own smile. He’s still not used to the feeling on his face - this universe has always been a dark one. Reginald hadn’t given the Sparrow Academy many reasons to smile, usually he had been the reason their smiles were snuffed out. Ben blinks at the thought of his old teammates.

“Hey, I-uh-I had a question.” Ben starts, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Five looks at him expectantly. 

“Where’d you send the rest of the Sparrow Academy?”

Five turns somber at the question, kicking at the dirt with his shoes. He stares down at the ground as a phantom pain twitches at the end of his left hand. He can hear and feel Voodoo’s breathy chuckle against his ear. Five separates himself from the feeling as he glances back up at Ben’s inquisitive expression.

“It wasn't purposeful, it was hard to control in that state, but I sent them as far as I could, I sent them to the edge of the universe, they would have died long before they ever reached it” Five answers with a shudder. “I’m sorry about your teammates, Ben.” 

Ben gulps as he imagines what that must have felt like. What a way to die. He remembers the feeling of being pulled through the wormhole, of being dropped into memories. He wonders if they felt similar as they were ripped through the galaxy. He catches the flicker of something in Five’s eyes, the flicker of guilt. 

“They were trying to kill us.” Ben offers, stepping forward. “Without you, we’d be dead. I should be thanking you.” 

Five flinches a step backwards, hugging himself against the cold air. 

“I know they had to have meant something to you.” The boy whispers, eyes falling back to the ground. “I mean we didn’t really get along as kids, but we all still loved each other.”

“Things were different in the Sparrow Academy, we weren’t raised as siblings, we were... students if I was to put it incredibly softly.” Ben assures, stepping forward once again.

Five forces himself to stay in the same spot, his legs shaking as his mind warns him that Ben could be lying. He could hate him, could be preparing to tear him to shreds, to pull him back down to the basement and cuff him again. Five gulps, forcing the thoughts to the back of his head where the rest of the darkness lies.

“I’m sorry nonetheless, Ben.” He mumbles, fingers tightening. 

He wishes his powers were fully cooperating, wishes he could feel safe in knowing he could escape.

“Hey, we’re cool?” Ben questions, eyes imploring as he leans down to look at Five who’s busy halfway hiding his face under his bangs.

“Yeah.” Five shakily whispers, blinking up at his brother.

Ben slowly reaches out, as if approaching a terrified little animal. Five warily watches, but allows himself to be pulled into his brother’s embrace nonetheless. His tense shoulders drop, his arms falling to his sides. His brother just hugs him gently for a moment. Five's heart beats rapidly in his chest. Ben steps back, holding Five back by the shoulder blades. He attempts a smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace.

“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you what happened, you know, before the jump.” He offers softly.

Five gulps, scanning his face. It’s clear the fourteen year old wants to say yes, that the word is on the tip of his tongue.

“No,” He says instead. “I...Diego promised to tell me soon. I should wait for him.” 

Ben nods, dropping his hands back to his pockets.

“You two...can I ask how that happened?” He questions, voice tilted to humor. “I mean-out of all of us-I never imagined Diego, the guy who wore his domino mask twenty four seven, would end up being a...well, a dad.”

“Right place, right time, I guess.” Five shrugs nonchalantly. He knows it was more than that, but it’s hard putting into words everything Diego’s done for him. He tries anyway. “He was the first one I found when I got back from the apocalypse and...and he believed me and he defended me. I’ve never...I’ve never had something like that before.”

Ben feels his heart swell at the thought that Five had someone to count on, especially back when his siblings couldn't remember him and were mostly acting like jackasses. He pictures Diego’s face when the siblings had first shown back up in 2019, when Five had been mentioned. The worry on his face had pleased Ben before, but now it’s different. The look that had been on Diego's face, it’s a type of love Ben doesn’t recognize, but a type of love that Five deserves more than anyone. He turns his attention back to Five, who’s watching him with curious eyes.

“Well, you make him better that’s for sure,” Ben says, clearing his throat. “I don’t think he’d have ever stuck around this long if it wasn’t for you.”

Five shrugs.

“We all make each other better.”

Ben can’t help but agree to that. In his thirty years - or technically sixty years- of life, he (and presumably Klaus) had never felt like they'd had or were a real family, until little Five showed up, forcing them all to work together and to start again. And then he’d done it once more in the 60's. Ben owes his life to Five and if helping him regain his powers is what it takes to begin to repay him, then he’s more than willing to try.


	18. Chapter 18

Diego yawns as he heads downstairs, running a hand through his hair. Sleeping in his childhood room, that now isn’t his childhood room, had been strange to say the least. Five had come in last night after going to his own equivalent room. He’d been shaking, memories of blood hitting him as soon as he’d stepped in the old room. Diego had easily offered to share the bed and he’d fallen asleep soon after. He’d woken up alone though, which was odd considering how early it was. He headed downstairs nonetheless, hoping Five was eating something. The kid desperately needs to eat more food. 

He steps into the kitchen, eyes falling on Ben and Five who are sitting next to each other at the table, talking in hushed whispers. The most Diego can make out are some numbers as he heads over to the counter. Ben and Five fall silent as they notice their brother. Diego glances behind himself, offering a soft smile. He finds his eyes catching on a notebook between the two brothers that Ben easily shuts. He hums, turning back towards the cabinet to pull a cup out. 

“Five, did you already have breakfast?” He asks as he settles the cup on the counter and heads to the fridge.

“Yeah, Ben made pancakes.” 

“Ah.” Diego says, pulling some orange juice out.

He tries to shove bitterness deep into his chest where it can’t leak out.

“There’s extra in the fridge.” Ben offers.

It’s a nice sentiment. So why can’t Diego keep the grimace off his face?

“I’m good.” Diego mutters, turning to head to the table.

Five smiles up at him, despite the deep circles under his eyes and his mussed hair.

“Did you sleep?” Diego asks, as he takes the seat across from Five’s.

Five glances between Ben and back to Diego.

“Uh-no, not really.” He mumbles.

Diego nods, scanning both of his brothers' faces, trying to uncover whatever he’s clearly missing.

“We’ll find somewhere else to stay as soon as possible.” Diego promises once more, reaching out to soften the hair sticking up on his little brother’s head. 

Five leans into the touch, exhaustion etched into his features. 

“Hey guys.”

Diego drops his hand, turning his attention over to Vanya who’s entered the room. 

“Hey, Vanya.” He greets with a small wave. “Sleep well?”

“No, but I doubt any of us did.” She says with a shrug, heading over to the sink.

She pours herself a cup of water and then heads to the table, sitting down next to Diego. She takes a sip, watching Ben over the rim of the cup. Ben stares back at her, question on his face.

“Hey, Ben?” She finally asks, setting the cup down with a clink.

“Yeah?” Ben questions, back straightening in his seat. 

“I-I think we should discuss the hotel.” 

Ben’s fingers clasp together on the table in front of him and his jaw clenches.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He says simply, eyes flickering between Vanya’s.

“Harlan shouldn’t be in there.” 

“He’s in there for a reason…” Ben starts, hands tightening. “All of them are in there for a reason.”

“What reason?” Vanya questions, voice growing higher and body turning more tense.

Five and Diego look at each other and then back to their two other siblings.

“They all contributed to the apocalypse one way or the other, some worse than the rest.” Ben explains, staring intently at his sister.

“You’re the ones who told me how much of an asshole Dad was.” She says, throwing out her arms. “Do you really trust his words?”

“Can we talk about this later?” Ben begs, hands untangling so he can reach up to massage the back of his neck.

“No, this is a conversation we need to have right now.” Vanya says stiffly. “They don’t deserve to be locked in there like animals. Luther, Allison, and Klaus all agree with me, I’ve been talking to them about it.”

“Vanya...please.” Ben whispers with a heavy sigh. 

Vanya looks to Diego and Five for backup. Diego looks conflicted and Five just looks incredibly confused. She huffs, getting out of her seat and stomping away. Ben quickly shoves out of his own seat, pushing the notebook in front of Five and patting the kid on the back. He runs out of the room, calling Vanya’s name. Diego stares at Five, trying to read whatever’s on his mind as his hand settles on top of the notebook.

“Five-” Diego starts when his little brother’s eyes finally land on his own.

“I know you remember me.” Five says at the same time, hand twisting into a fist on top of the notebook.

Diego’s composure cracks, his mouth falling open in surprise.

“Ben, that bastard.” He growls, pushing out of his chair.

“It’s not entirely his fault.” Five quickly corrects. “You winked at me. He just confirmed my suspicions.”

Diego falters, hand settling on the back of the chair as he stands next to it.

“What?” 

“When you stabbed Number Two, you winked at me.” Five says as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You used to do that when we trained together.”

“Huh.” Diego whispers to himself, shoulders dropping.

He hadn’t even considered the ramifications of such a simple move. Hadn’t thought Five would really even notice, much less remember. But that’s his own fault for underestimating his genius of a little brother.

“I know you said to wait, but Diego, I don’t have the patience to wait any longer. This is a part of my life being hidden from me again, you don’t understand how it feels to know something’s missing but not what. It-it eats at me. Just wondering what the hell I could have done.”

Diego gulps, knuckles turning white where they clench the back of the chair. He desperately wishes there was some sort of way out of this situation. He feels sick to his stomach, the idea of what he’s about to be forced to tell his little brother nauseating. It’s like the feeling of telling someone that the person they loved was killed, but worse because it’s telling his sweet little brother who’d struggled with killing assassins that he killed people. It’s his sweet little brother that he’s about to explain what the Commission did to him and made him do.

“Okay.” Diego whispers through the queasiness. 

His tongue feels thick in his mouth, his throat is dry. It’s a feeling that’s become second nature lately, the fear that Five’s going to break, that he’s finally going to implode after all the shit and Diego won’t be able to bring him back.

“Let’s head upstairs.” Diego softly offers, motioning to the doorway.

Five gets up, shoving the notebook under his arm. He follows behind his brother, their anxious energies mingling as they head up the stairs.

* * *

Five sits silently, staring down at his hand. He hears his brother’s nervous voice call his name, but he’s currently wedged in his own head, trying to process the plethora of information Diego has just unloaded. His brain spins like a record player, catching on the thought of Diego being murdered, the thought of him killing innocent people, the thought of him almost ending the world. He wonders what would have happened if he’d stayed dead after the electrocution, his family would probably be better off. He hates himself, but that’s not a new feeling.

He only notices he’s crying when he feels Diego’s hand on his face. 

“How-” Five starts, his voice devolving into a wet sob.

Diego attempts to pull him into an embrace, but Five pushes him away, face sharp with confusion.

“How can y-you-”

“How can I what?” Diego asks softly, tone so gentle it makes Five cry harder.

“How can you still...love me?” Five questions, voice breaking.

Diego sighs, scooting closer to his brother. Looks like he’s once again back to square one. He wonders how many square ones it will take until the universe decides to spare them. How many times he’ll have to bring Five back from the brink, how many times he’ll have to convince him of his love, how many times he’ll have to stay up at night wondering if this was the breaking point. He pulls his brother into his arms, shutting his eyes as he tightly holds him. He whispers into his hair all the things he had once before, begging him to be softer with himself, begging him to understand it wasn’t his fault. 

He supposes the one helpful thing that resulted from doing this before is he knows this isn’t something that can be healed with words. He can’t assume that Five’s heard a single word he’s said, can’t assume that Five isn’t teetering on the edge of a precipice. So he holds on tighter, accepts the newest of his many challenges, possibly the hardest of them all - teaching Five to love himself. It’ll likely last a lifetime, will likely contain a multitude of pitfalls, but Diego knew the day he’d found Five in Gimbles, that he would do anything to protect him. Now, he has to protect him from himself.

His heart aches at the sound of the broken sobs. It’s heartbreaking, the amount of trauma Five’s been forced to endure. Diego wishes he had time traveling powers, that he could go back to when Five was born and take him far away. Give him the simple life he’d always deserved, a life away from their father and away from the rest of the evil of the world. A life where he could just be a kid, a kid without the promise of a painful future. 

But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? The universe isn’t kind, it isn’t forgiving. But, despite this, Diego finds himself thanking it for at least sending Five back to him, for at least giving him the chance to protect his brother and to teach him just how unconditional love can be.

He hugs Five to his chest, like he has so many times before. He’ll continue to hug him until his arms ache and he’ll continue long after that. He’ll hold him until Five can truly grasp how much he cares about him, how much he loves him. No mental gymnastics required.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pretty short chapter, but also obviously a very necessary one :O but don't worry the last two chapters are looking like they're going to be rather long, I might end up splitting them into three chapters, haven't decided yet


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to stick with two chapters. So without further ado, here is the longest chapter of the entire series!

The week passes with a tension filled house. Five stays locked up in Diego’s room, silently working away in his notebook. Most of the siblings avoid him, attempting to give him time to begin to somehow recover. Diego, despite Klaus’s earlier advice, is in and out of the room constantly checking up on Five. He wants to ask about the notebook, but he doesn’t really need to to know exactly what it contains. Allison’s still been uncharacteristically quiet, almost as quiet as she’d been after losing her voice. The most “normal” of the siblings, Klaus and Luther spend time together figuring out how to price the mountain of shit collected in the living room. Ben has been avoiding Vanya, locking himself in Reginald’s office, determined to figure out what the man had always been up to. 

He has the most notable papers stapled to the wall. Reginald would have killed him for just using his office like this, but going through his papers and then stapling them to the wall? The man must be rolling in his grave. 

He looks over to the floor where the journal still sits and then back over to his amalgamation of evidence. He sighs and heads over to the object, picking it up. His fingers brush against the cover. He gulps, remembering the type of shit that had been in their father’s journal the first time around. He heads over to Reginald’s desk, plopping down in the seat. He opens the book to the first page. 

* * *

Five wakes to the sound of a gentle knock on the door. 

“Hey.” Diego softly greets, stepping into the room.

Five yawns, rubbing his swollen eyes with the back of his hand. Diego sits on the edge of the bed, reaching out to push Five’s bangs out of his pale face.

“How are you?” Diego asks, glancing over at the notebook on the nightstand. 

“I’m okay.” Five croaks.

“We’re having a family meeting…” Diego whispers, leaning back to gauge Five’s reaction.

The fourteen year old nods, slowly pushing himself up. 

“Hey, you know you can talk to me right?” Diego assures, patting Five’s leg. “Even if you think I might not understand…”

“I know.” Five whispers. His voice is rough and crackly. “Thank you.”

“You’re my kid. I’d do anything for you.” Diego reminds him with a gentle smile.

Five smiles albeit shakily, reaching out to wrap his arms around Diego’s middle. Diego tightly reciprocates, mumbling an “I love you” into his brother’s hair. 

“Meet us in the kitchen.” Diego says as they separate. 

Five nods, pulling himself completely out of the bed. 

* * *

The tension is at an all time high as the siblings stand around the kitchen table waiting for Five. Diego bounces on his heels as he glances between Vanya and Ben. The siblings all turn to the doorway at the sound of Five entering. The fourteen year old looks nervous and guilty as he heads across the room to plant himself next to Diego. He scans the faces of his siblings who are all silently staring back at him.

“I’m sorry about everything.” Five mumbles, hanging his head.

“You have nothing to apologize for, little bro.” Klaus says without wasting a moment. 

He reaches out, from where he’s standing next to Five, to place a hand on his little brother’s back.

“Klaus is right, it wasn’t your fault.” Vanya agrees from across the table. 

The rest of their siblings nod in agreement. Five looks at each of them in disbelief and amazement. 

“Are you serious?” Five questions, voice wobbly as he edges towards tears.

“We love you, Five.” Allison reassures, reaching around Diego to grasp Five’s hand.

Five can’t believe his siblings, they’ve clearly gone off the rails to accept him so easily after everything he’d done. He can’t comprehend how they could possibly love him so much, even with knowing his plethora of faults. The tears roll down his face without his permission. He looks up at Diego who’s already staring down at him with a soft smile and gleaming eyes. He doesn’t know what to say, so he stays silent turning shy at the loving gazes all directed towards him. Diego pulls him into his side, halfway hugging him. He can feel Klaus’s hand rubbing his back and Allison’s grasp grounds him. He finds himself smiling, despite everything. All he’s ever wanted was his siblings’ love and looking at them now, he feels it more than ever. 

“We should-” Vanya starts, voice low.

She doesn’t want to interrupt the moment, but she also can’t stop thinking and worrying about Harlan and the other people stuck in the hotel.

The siblings all turn their attention back to the task at hand, ripping their gaze away from Diego who’s using his own shirt to wipe the tears from Five’s face. It’s such a paternal action that the siblings feel themselves aching at the sight. 

“The hotel.” Ben completes for his sister, finally looking her in the eyes for the first time in a few days.

“Vanya’s right, we can’t leave them in there. Especially when so many of them helped us.” Allison adds, smiling across the table at her sister.

Luther nods and says, “I agree, plus most of them were likely put in there for the wrong reasons.”

“What do you plan to do with them when we let them out? How are you going to make sure they don’t hurt someone?” Ben questions, glancing between his siblings.

“Luther and I have been talking about this, but we think we could stay here and train them so they can control their powers.” Klaus offers, raising his hands and wiggling his fingers. “We’ve got how many bedrooms in this shit-hole? They can stay here so we can keep an eye on them.” 

Ben reels at that, he had no clue Klaus had been considering staying to help the Hotel Oblivion people. It’s strange, not feeling as close to Klaus as he once had in the other universe while Five had been gone.

“I know where Sissy had been heading before we left, I think I’m gonna go there with Harlan- see if...if maybe she’s still around or if they have any other family.” Vanya mentions, scanning Ben’s face for his reaction.

Ben sighs, it’s clear his family won’t be changing their minds anytime soon. They’re a stubborn bunch. Besides, he knows they have a point. It’s unlikely that everyone in the hotel is bad and deserves to be there. After all, Reginald had put his siblings in the hotel not long ago. But there were definitely some bad apples that the Sparrow Academy had fought and they’d been sent there as well.

“I hope you all know what you’re doing, these people could be seriously dangerous.” Ben warns.

His siblings definitely take his words as excited encouragement rather than the warning he attempts to give them. Vanya smiles widely, a weight lifting from her shoulders.

“Ben, we’re Team Zero, they have nothing on us.” Luther reminds, winking at Diego.

The room devolves into chuckles. Five may be confused but he still manages a small laugh nonetheless.

“Okay.” Ben finally says, although his tone shows how much he’s still against the idea.

“Thank you, Ben.” Vanya whispers, whole-heartedly appreciative of her brother.

* * *

The siblings all separate. Vanya, Luther, and Klaus head to the other side of the house to check out the other bedrooms, Ben heads back to Reginald’s office, Five heads back upstairs, and Allison starts towards the front door.

“Hey, where you heading?” Diego calls, trailing behind his sister.

Allison’s hand had just clasped the door handle when she’d heard Diego’s voice.

“I’m heading to the bank,” She starts, turning around to look at him. “I’m trying to see if we can get the house and Dad’s finances put under our names.” 

“Can I come with?” Diego asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“Uh-sure.” Allison offers, opening the door.

They step outside, Diego shutting the door behind himself. He glances back at the house, hoping Five will be okay for a few hours. He has important things to discuss with their sister.

“So, I guess we’re walking?” Diego questions, following Allison down the sidewalk.

“I think we could both use the fresh air, besides it’s only a few blocks down the road.” Allison answers with a shrug.

Diego nods, settling into an equal pace next to his sister.

“So, why’d you really come along?” Allison finally asks after a few moments of silent walking.

Diego sighs, glancing over at his sister. She’s staring back at him with an arched brow. She looks incredibly exhausted, like she hasn’t slept since the moment she found out Claire wasn’t born. Diego looks away to the sidewalk, feeling guilty.

“Five’s planning to time travel.” He tells her.

“What?” Allison asks, eyebrows screwing up.

“He’d kill himself if he tried, get himself stuck in the prehistoric age or something equally terrible. I mean as much as I hate the bastard, it’s clear Dad was right, that time travel is extremely different from Five’s spatial jumping and with him struggling just to do that…” Diego glances over at Allison’s pinched expression. “Look, I’m telling you this because I think you’re the only one that could talk him out of it.”

Allison’s face falls at the realization.

“He’s doing this because of me…” She mumbles, folding her arms across her chest.

“I think he’s doing it for a lot of reasons.” Diego offers, quick to attempt to absolve his sister of at least some of her perceived blame. “He thinks everything’s his fault and he thinks we’re going to hate it here, which maybe we will, but we can’t risk his life in some misplaced hope that we won’t ruin the timeline even more. Who’s to say the Commission won’t just grab him when he’s time traveling again?”

“You’re right. As much as I’d love to...to change things,” Allison gulps, voice wavering as she tries to not think about Claire. “I don’t think there’s a safe way to do that without jeopardizing Five or Ben and I-I don’t want that. Have you talked to him about it?”

“No, not yet. He’s been sneaking around with Ben. I could kill the bastard for encouraging this. I'm so pissed at him.” Diego grumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“How’d you know then?” Allison asks, voice soft.

“Five likes to think he’s some master of secrecy or a spy or something, but he can never keep things from me. He’s always so obvious about it too, leaving his notebook lying around, writing in it in front of me, I mean one time he even asked me to write a number for him cause his hand was cramping. Clearly, he wants me to know.” Diego chuckles humorlessly, shaking his head at his kid’s recklessness.

“I’m sure he doesn't like hiding things from you. Why’s he hiding it anyway?” 

“I think partly because he knows I was worried about him when I first found him using his powers, and also partly because I was hiding the past from him.” Diego says, cringing as the memory of finding Five on the floor at the hospital pops into his head.

“Well, I think maybe all of us should talk to him, convince him that we’re going to stay here.” 

Diego glances back over at his sister. Allison’s incredibly upset, he can tell by the twitching of her lip, how downcast her eyes are, the twitching of her fingers around her arm.

“I’m so sorry again, Allison.” He says, voice low and gentle. He stops Allison with a hand on her arm. He looks her in the eyes as he whispers, “You deserve to be happy.” 

Allison blinks in a quick succession, tears building in her eyes. Diego pulls her to him, his arms tightly wrapping around her. She trembles, her arms falling down from her chest to around Diego’s back. She clasps her hands together, hugging her brother back. They stay like that for a moment, in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I think you should talk to Ben too.” Allison finally says as she pulls away from the embrace.

She reaches up, wiping her face with the sleeves of her jacket.

“I don’t know how to do that without wanting to kill him for encouraging this behavior.” Diego mutters, tucking a strand of stray hair behind his ear.

“Hey, there’s been plenty of times I’ve wanted to kill you, you’ll get past it.” She chuckles tearfully, bumping him with her shoulder.

He sticks his tongue out at her as they start to walk again.

“Alright, there’s the bank.” Allison says, pointing to the building a little further down the sidewalk.

Her eyes catch on a sign on the bus stop in front of the building. It’s a vibrant sign with a picture of two children, one’s singing and one’s holding a guitar. They both have bright smiles on their faces.

_Lauren and Luis want to be rockstars…_

_But first, they need a loving foster family_

Allison almost cries again right then and there because of an advert. Diego nudges her gently, his eyes following her gaze. Allison blinks, plastering a smile on her face and smoothing her shirt. She holds herself tall and starts towards the bank. 

* * *

Ben glances between the book in his hands and up to the papers scattered on the walls. He’s figured it out. The big secret. The reason for everything. He’d expected some sinister plan, secret world domination maybe. But this is far from that, far from anything he’d expected from their asshole of a father.

Suddenly there’s a woosh into the room and Ben falls backwards to the ground in surprise. Five slams into the wall, gripping his chest. 

“Five? What the hell?!” Ben shouts, pushing himself up from the ground.

“I-I’m getting closer, I can feel it.” Five mutters, exhaling sharply.

“How do you know you aren’t permanently hurting yourself jumping like that?” Ben huffs, heart beating heavily in his chest at the surprise of Five’s appearance.

He drops Reginald’s book onto the desk, before returning to his brother’s side.

“I don’t.” Five says with a nonchalant shrug.

“Great.” Ben scoffs. 

“Anyway,” Five starts, pushing himself off of the wall. “I need your help with an equation.”

He pulls a folded paper out of his pocket.

“Five-”

Five motions for Ben’s hand. When his brother holds his hand out, Five drops the paper into it. Ben unfolds the paper, eyebrows screwing up as he attempts to read Five’s scribbles. Most of the page is ineligible, which is no surprise considering Five’s been forced to use his non-dominant hand to write.

“Look, Five, I think you should tell-”

Ben’s words are cut off by the sound of choking. He looks up from the paper to find Five’s face turning paler. His arms are raised up towards his throat, his right hand pulling at something invisible.

“What’s wrong?” Ben questions, the paper dropping to the floor as he rushes to his brother’s side. 

“Are you choking on something?” Ben asks, scanning his brother’s face as he pats his back.

Five shakes his head. He falls to his knees, hand scrabbling in his shirt. Ben notices the sound of voices outside.

“Oh, fuck.” He curses, stepping out of the office. 

Luther, Klaus, and Vanya are standing around with the people from the hotel. 

“Why didn’t you fucking wait for me?!” Ben shouts, scanning the sea of faces.

He finds who he’s looking for, a man whose face is twisted in a smirk, and whose hand is making a choking action by his side. Ben’s tentacles rip from his chest and soar through the crowd, wrapping around the man. With a twist, his neck is broken and he’s falling to the ground. The people standing around him shout in horror.

“Ben, what the hell?!” Luther yells, shoving through the crowd of people.

“He was choking Five.” Ben hisses before turning his attention to the group. He glares at each person. “Let this serve as a lesson for all of you, anyone tries to touch the kid again or anyone else in this family will see the same fate.”

Ben’s commanding tone turns the room silent. He remembers Five and quickly returns to the office, where Five’s still on the ground, desperately sucking air into his lungs. Ben drops down next to him, rubbing his back.

“You’re okay.” Ben whispers, scanning his brother’s red and teary face.

“What the hell happened?”

Ben mutters a “shit” as he looks up to find Diego staring down at them.

“One of the hotel-” Ben starts.

Diego pushes him out of the way, bending down next to his little brother. His hand reaches out to gently touch the marks around Five’s neck.

“You told me you’d keep an eye on him. Does that include aiding and abetting? Or maybe it includes letting him get choked out?” Diego snarls, angrily glaring up at his brother.

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault.” Ben argues, throwing out his hands.

“Maybe that wasn’t. But you sneaking around, helping him with time traveling, I thought you were smarter than that.” Diego scolds.

Five’s shaking his head, mouth opening but no words coming out. Even if he could speak, Diego’s expression doesn’t invite an argument. Diego pulls Five up from the ground. 

“We’re leaving the house. I’ll contact you all in a few days, we need some distance.” Diego says brusquely as he leads Five out of the room.

The fourteen year old glances back at Ben, mouthing a “sorry” at his brother. Ben follows them out, guiltily watching as they leave. He glances around the living room, most of the people are gone, leaving behind just Klaus and the body. 

“Jesus, Ben, why’d you do that?” Klaus asks, bent over the dead guy on the floor. 

“He was choking Five.” Ben offers. “And he was bad. He tried the same shit on us years ago so we shoved him into the hotel.”

“You can’t just kill people, dude. That’s so not good for morale.” Klaus mumbles, straightening up to a stand.

“Excuse me for trying to help.” Ben grumbles, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Hey, what’s up with you? Why’d Diego leave all pissy?” Klaus questions, stepping towards his brother.

“I was helping Five get his powers back.” Ben answers with a shrug.

“Why would Diego be mad about that?” Klaus asks, eyes searching his brother’s face.

“Because we were hiding it from him, it’s not the safest thing and Five wants to use them to time travel.” Ben offers. 

Listening to himself speak only reminds him how terrible of an idea it had been in the first place, but he wasn’t given very many options at the time.

“Oh, Ben, why would you do that?” Klaus questions, disappointment leaking into his tone.

“It was either I help him or I tell Diego and he goes behind all our backs and does it himself.” Ben attempts to defend himself, anxiety coiling in his chest at the thought of Klaus being disappointed in him.

“I guess you’re right. Diego will come around I’m sure.” Klaus assures, clapping Ben on the shoulder. “For now, help me with the body.”

“How’d you even get them all to come out?” Ben asks, leaning down to grab the man’s arm.

“We just shouted ‘Want out of this shit-hole? Follow us!’ and surprise surprise, everyone who ignored us when we were stuck in there came on out. We’ll probably have to go back a few times to make sure, but a lot of people came out.” Klaus shrugs, reaching down to pick up the legs.

“What the hell happened?!” Allison shouts from the living room doorway.

  
  


* * *

“Are you mad at me?” Five asks, glancing between the road and his brother.

They’re standing on the curb, waiting for the cab Diego called. The car arrives seconds after Five’s question, so Diego elects to ignore it, getting into the car instead. Five follows suit. Diego tells the driver to take them to a close hotel. Five quietly sits in his seat, fingers trembling with anxiety. He forces himself to stay facing forward, despite seeing Diego’s irritated face out of the corner of his eye. His legs bounce up and down as he tries to think of something to say.

“Diego, I’m sorry.” Five finally whispers, halfway through the silent drive.

“We’ll talk when we get to the hotel.” 

Five gulps, twisting away from Diego to stare out his window.

They get to the hotel, Diego shelling out some of the money he and Allison had retrieved from their father’s account for both the car and a hotel room for the next three days. As soon as they get into the room, Diego drops onto one of the beds with a heavy sigh. Five sits on the edge of the other one, watching as Diego rubs his face.

“I’m not mad at you.” Diego finally says, rolling over onto his side to look at his brother.

Five blinks at him, his body not feeling any less rigid at Diego’s words.

“I’m just disappointed you felt like you couldn’t tell me.” Diego adds, scanning his brother’s anxious face.

“I just didn’t want you to worry.” Five whispers, hugging himself.

“And what was your plan? To go back by yourself and try to convince Dad to still adopt us? I mean, Five are you even thinking?” Diego questions, keeping his voice level and remaining laying on the bed. He wants to appear as least threatening as possible to his clearly nervous brother. “You know what happened the first time you tried to time travel and you’re starting back at square one, how could you trust your powers enough to risk yourself like that?”

“I just want you all to be happy.” Five mumbles, eyes fixed on the carpet under his shoes.

“Well, I can tell you for a fact, we won’t be happy if something bad happens to you, especially if it’s because of us.” 

“So, what? I’m just supposed to do nothing? I’m the only one with the power to fix this! This is all my fault to begin with, if I hadn’t-” Five’s words break off with a cry.

He shakes his head as he shoves it into his hand.

“This isn’t your fault.” Diego reminds him softly. “The Handler manipulated you and before that, Dad manipulated you. None of this is your fault and I promise you our siblings feel the exact same way. Allison told me just today that she doesn’t want you risking time travel and you know how much this has affected her. If she doesn’t expect this from you, no one else does.”

“I can’t-I can’t just sit by while your lives are all ruined.” Five mutters into his hand.

“Our lives are better because you’re in it, we’re a family now and we’ll get through this like a family. Together.” Diego promises.

He aches to stand up and hug his brother, but he doesn’t want to intimidate him so he remains in his current spot.

“You want me to just never use my powers again?” Five asks, dropping his hand to look over at Diego.

“Yes, the time traveling ones. We can practice your spatial jumps, but I don’t want you time traveling. Is that reasonable?” 

Five is silent for a moment, watching Diego’s face. That nagging feeling that comes with people being authoritative towards him settles into the pit of his stomach begging him to fight this, begging him to yell at Diego and tell him this is the most unreasonable request possible. But he understands, because Diego loves him, his siblings love him. They don’t want anything bad to happen to him, even after everything.

“Yes.” He whispers.

He feels like he’s outside of his own body, like a puppeteer just forced him to agree.

“Do you actually mean that or are you just saying it because you know it’s what I want to hear?” 

“I want to hear it from everyone else - that they don’t want me to try. If they don’t...then I won’t try.” Five affirms.

The feeling in his stomach uncoils at the small smile on Diego’s face. _He loves you._ His mind reminds himself, as if he’d forgotten within seconds. _Real love shouldn’t hurt. This isn’t like what Dad did to you. This is real, Diego loves you. It’s okay to listen to someone who loves you._

“Come here.” Diego softly calls, patting the spot next to him.

Five gets up from the bed, walking over to Diego’s. His brother pulls him down until he’s laying next to him. Diego wraps his arms around him. Five hugs his brother back, cuddling into his chest.

“You shouldn’t hate Ben. I asked him to not tell you, it’s my fault for putting him in a bad position.” Five mumbles into Diego’s shirt. 

Diego kisses his brother’s head before releasing him. He rolls fully onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, contemplating Five’s words.

“Okay.” He agrees, patting his little brother’s arm.

They lay in comfortable silence for a moment. The sound of the air conditioner is the only thing they can hear.

“Diego?” Five questions.

“Yeah?” Diego asks, turning his head to look back at his brother.

“What if you have another life here? What if you have kids?” 

Diego’s eyebrows scrunch at the question. He hadn’t considered the possibility of himself having another life here, a life outside of the one that’s seemingly revolved around Five for quite some time now.

“I’m still me and you’re still you, nothing this world can throw at us will change that.” He promises with a small smile. 

“But-” Five starts, sitting up.

“No buts, that’s the end of the statement.” Diego interrupts, staring up at his brother. “I’ll always love you, unconditionally. I don’t care what this universe is like, I don’t care what our pasts look like. You’re my kid, you’re always going to be my kid.”

Five’s shoulders drop at the assurances, smile twitching at his lips. He lays back down next to his brother, staring up at the splotchy white ceiling.

“You think it’s all over?” He wonders aloud. “The Commission, The Handler, the apocalypses, Dad?”

“I think anyone who tries to mess with us from here on out will have hell to pay. We’re Team Zero now, we’re a family.” Diego promises. 

Five can only imagine what the Reginald from their universe would have thought of this, their family a united front. Even their father, who tried harder than anyone to pit them against each other, couldn’t break their bonds now. Five allows himself to smile fully at the thought. 

* * *

The next three days pass slowly, but in the best of ways. Five and Diego actually do relax, watching movies on the TV and ordering food in. Diego does his best to distract Five from his thoughts, busying him with movies he’s missed, like Star Wars. Five enjoyed correcting a lot of the series’ science, whether he actually liked the movies or not is another question entirely. Either way, Diego had enjoyed just listening to Five rattle off the many reasons why the force is just not scientifically accurately portrayed, whatever that means.

It’s nice, just the two of them. But Diego knows the rest of the family deserves to hear from them so they can figure out where to go from here. He calls the house and surprisingly Ben is the one to answer. Diego thinks maybe the rest of their siblings forced him to, knowing Diego was calling and that the two need to make up.

“Hey, Ben.” Diego greets into the phone.

Five’s eyebrows raise as he watches his brother from where he’s laying on the bed. He shoves the chip bag off of his chest and sits up, attempting to hear as much of the conversation as possible

“Look, Diego, I-” Ben starts, anxiety making itself known even all the way through the phone lines.

“Don’t apologize.” Diego says, cutting his brother off. “I understand why you did it.” 

“What?” Ben questions, voice incredulous.

“You don’t need to apologize, I forgive you. We’re gonna be okay.” Diego promises, finger twisting the phone cord.

“Who are you and what did you do to my brother?!” Klaus shouts into the phone.

Diego rolls his eyes. He’s not surprised Klaus must have been hovering. 

“I’m a very forgiving guy.” Diego says with a shrug.

“You’ve become such a Dad, Diego.” Ben chuckles into the receiver.

Diego turns, glancing over at Five who’s staring back at him.

“I sure have.” He agrees happily.

The line is silent for a moment.

“Anyway,” Ben finally says, clearing his throat. “I don’t know if this is why you’re calling, but we need to have another family meeting.”

“That’s exactly why I was calling. Five and I will head over now.”

* * *

“Alright, before we get into the logistics of everything, I have something I have to tell you guys.” Ben starts, glancing around the dining room table at each of his siblings. “I went looking through Dad’s stuff because I wanted to figure out what he was really trying to accomplish for all these years.” 

Ben’s eyes fall on Five whose fingers are nervously tapping on the table.

“I think, based off of everything I saw, he was trying to get back home.”

“Home?” Luther questions, leaning across the table to peer at Ben.

“He’s not from Earth. He mentioned this planet a few times in his journal and in one of the papers I found. I believe something had destroyed it and he had to leave someone behind. He had so much research on wormholes after hearing about Five’s in 1963. Mostly on the feasibility of alternate universes. I think he was trying to figure out a way to a universe where the planet was never destroyed.” 

“Nothing like that was-” Luther starts but is immediately cut off.

“Dad’s an alien?! Does that mean we’re aliens?! Elliott was right?!” Klaus shouts, throwing his hands around in the air.

“You do realize we were adopted right?” Allison quips, rolling her eyes at her brother’s exaggerated antics.

“Anyway, like I was trying to say, nothing like that was mentioned in his diary in the other universe.” Luther remarks as he searches his memories in an attempt to recollect anything that could have pointed to this during their childhood.

“He wouldn’t have known about my abilities. He probably thought it’d be impossible to go back.” Five offers, glancing between his siblings.

“Exactly.” Ben says with a nod.

“I’m sorry, are you all really okay with Ben saying that our Dad was an alien?!” Klaus questions, eyebrows raised as he looks around the table for someone in agreement.

“It’s honestly not the weirdest thing that’s happened.” Vanya mumbles.

“I guess I just expected Dad’s reasons to be more…” Diego trails off, waving his hand.

“Evil?” Ben offers. At Diego’s nod, he continues with, “Yeah I did too.” 

“Every plan is an evil plan when you’re the devil.” Allison adds with a humorless chuckle.

“Five, are you okay?” Ben asks, noticing his little brother’s far away expression.

“Yeah...I guess I just don’t get why he went through all the trouble.” Five answers, hand forming a fist on the table. “Why didn’t he just ask me? I would have helped him.” 

“He was also pissed about the dinner,” Ben adds as an explanation. “He held a hell of a grudge.” 

“He was a dick, that’s it. Doesn’t matter what his end goal was, he was a terrible person.” Diego echoes his sentiment from back at their father’s “funeral.”

“He was.” Luther agrees, his words a stark difference from how he’d felt so long ago.

“Well now that we know Dad was a fucking alien…” Klaus trails off, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Let’s move on to other matters.”

“While you guys were gone,” Luther starts, motioning to Five and Diego. “We talked about the future. Ben, Klaus, and I are planning to stay here and train the people from Hotel Oblivion. We want to help them until they’re comfortable with their powers and can safely survive in the outside world.”

“You guys want to stay in this house?” Diego questions, taken aback as he looks between the three.

“It’s not ideal, but we can survive a few years.” Ben answers with a shrug.

Luther and Klaus seem to share the sentiment, nodding along to the words.

“Allison and I are gonna go on a road trip with Harlan to see if we can find Sissy, or any of his family. Sissy had said she was going to California to stay with a friend and Allison and I were apparently raised in LA anyway, so we’ll probably spend some time there, figure out what we missed. We’re planning to stop by Dallas too, see if we can find Ray or any of his relatives.” Vanya explains, reaching out to grab Allison’s hand.

Allison smiles at her sister, squeezing her hand.

“If you two are interested,” Allison starts, looking at Five and Diego. “I figured I could put more good use to my powers, set you guys up with a house somewhere close by.” 

“So we’re all separating?” Five asks dejectedly. 

“We’re not leaving you, Five.” Allison promises, glancing over at Vanya who nods in agreement. “We can visit and call. This isn’t necessarily permanent either.” 

“You’re all okay with staying here? In this timeline?” Five questions, eyes scanning each of his siblings.

They all look at each other with small smiles.

“We’re together and we’re alive, that’s what matters.” Klaus says, reaching behind himself to pat Luther and Ben who are sitting next to him.

“It’s not going to be perfect, some days are going to be extremely hard. I miss my daughter so damn much, but I have hope that she’s still out there right where she’s supposed to be with her Dad who loves her and-and with me in her heart. I...I’m thankful I still have you all.” Allison’s voice breaks off into a choked sob.

Chairs scratch against the floor as the siblings all immediately get up from their seats and move to Allison. Vanya pulls her up from her seat and into her arms. The rest of the siblings pile around them. Five smiles against Allison’s back. 

_God, I love them._ He thinks.

The feeling of siblings surrounding him is almost too much to bear. A little over a month ago, as far as he can remember, he was alone in a barren wasteland. He hadn’t been sure he’d ever see his siblings again, had ached so desperately for their faces. And when he’d seen them again for the first time, he hadn’t expected things to change drastically from childhood, hadn’t expected them to fall over out of happiness from seeing him. But, now? Now, he knows they love him. They truly love him and each other. They’re a real family now. They went through hell and back and came out stronger. Despite everything the universe sent their way, all the struggles, all the grief, they still have each other. Five closes his eyes, taking in the feeling of how at peace he feels. There’s still a war raging in the back of his mind, begging him to pay attention, begging him to give in. But right now, with his siblings holding each other, he feels strong. Stronger than the feeling of a wormhole growing from his own chest. Stronger than ever before. Together, they can weather any storm.


	20. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to say thank you so much to all my faithful readers! I’ve especially appreciated all of the comments, they’re what kept me going and feeling inspired!! This is the first multi-chapter fic/series I’ve ever finished so super exciting!!! I have all of you to thank for that! I’m so glad you all came on this journey with me and I hope you enjoy the (incredibly long-winded) epilogue of “A Ripple in Time and Space.”

**_8 Years Later_ **

Diego’s humming along to ‘Jingle Bells’ as he dances around the kitchen. It’s still a month until Christmas, but the season has become basically an addiction now. After being away from their father for so long and growing close to his family, Diego actually likes Christmas. As a child, Christmas was just another day of training. Reginald refused to celebrate the season. Sometimes the siblings would try to celebrate in their own ways, sneaking out in the early hours to gorge themselves on donuts and then walking a couple blocks down to see the decorated buildings. But now, Diego doesn’t have to hide his love for the season. He’s even more excited because Five’s finally coming back home from college. And then he only has a few weeks left before he’ll be out for winter break and back again for even longer. Diego will admit to just about anyone who will listen, how much he misses Five and wishes he’d gone to a local college instead. But then in the same breath, he’ll also brag about how proud he is that _his_ son not only got into Harvard, but is studying astrophysics there.

He checks on the cookies in the oven, he’s making the peanut butter ones with the chocolate kisses in the middle, Klaus’s favorite. Mom had taught him how to make them what feels like eons ago. The smell is intoxicating in the ways it reminds him of his mother and her unconventional love. He closes the oven and checks the time on his phone. He and the rest of his family had been perplexed by cell phones, apparently technology had advanced more in this timeline for some reason. Five and Ben had taken to the new technology like ducks to water, while the rest of them needed lots of coddling to understand how to correctly use the devices. Diego has come to greatly appreciate cell phones because they allow Five to call him whenever, wherever, which frankly makes him feel much better about his kid being away from home. 

Diego looks around the kitchen, taking in the Christmas decorations. His siblings are bound to make fun of him, as they have every Christmas, for decorating so early. But, he knows secretly they love it too. He nods to himself, feeling content. The music stops as the phone vibrates on the counter, jolting him out of his thoughts. Five’s face is on the screen, a picture of him with his eyes shut and tongue sticking out. Diego doesn’t waste a second picking the device up and answering the call.

“Five?” He asks into the phone, tilting his head to rest the device against his shoulder.

“Hey, Dad.”

Diego almost melts at hearing Five’s voice, they hadn’t talked in a couple weeks, Five busy with preparing for finals and reviewing his dissertation.

“Hey, kiddo. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.” Diego says into the phone, heading over to the oven as it beeps.

“Me too! Speaking of which…” Five trails off and Diego’s eyebrows pinch at the tone of his voice.

“Yeah?” Diego asks, attempting to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

He peers into the oven, the cookies are almost done. He likes to make sure they’re the perfect golden brown that his siblings love.

“I was wondering- is it cool with you if my roommate and his mom come?”

Diego reels, he hadn’t been expecting that, especially a day before Thanksgiving.

“I know it’s late notice,” Five adds hesitantly. “But I just found out that they don’t have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with and I just-I felt kinda bad. I mean we’re lucky to have such a big family.”

Diego’s expression softens into a small smile as he walks around the kitchen.

“Of course, Five. I’m guessing you assumed I’d say yes, given your flight is in oh,” He pulls the phone away from his face to check the time. “An hour.”

Five chuckles on the other line.

“Well, they’re planning on driving over tomorrow, but are you really trying to fault me for expecting your good-naturedness?”

Diego rolls his eyes as he heads back over to the oven. 

“No, I guess not.” He says with an exaggerated sigh as he opens the oven door and puts on oven mitts. “So, are they just staying for Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah-yeah they’ll head back the next day if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course, they’re more than welcome to stay the night.” Diego offers, pulling the cookies out of the oven and setting them on the stove top. “You’re gonna stay longer though, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Besides Duchess Jellybean misses you.”

“She better fucking miss me.” Diego teases, voice marked with a feigned sternness.

Five’s laugh carries through the line. _Duchess Jellybean._ Diego remembers when they had adopted the cat. Vanya had ended up volunteering at a cat café again not long after her and Allison got to LA, which led to a long discussion between her and Diego on how a cat could really help Five therapeutically. As soon as he’d gotten off the phone, Diego had convinced Five to go with him to a cat café. Of course he’d hidden his ulterior motives, but he hadn’t needed to even nudge Five as soon as they’d gotten into the room. Five had immediately attracted cats begging for his affection and he was more than willing to give it. Diego had sat on a chair, allowing a cat to nestle on his lap as he watched Five. Unsurprisingly, Five wasn’t interested in the cats rubbing up against his leg, he was drawn to the one cat hiding in the corner. It had hissed at him as he’d carefully approached it. The volunteer had warned Five that the cat wasn’t very sociable, but that didn’t deter the boy. Five simply plopped on the floor, waiting for the cat to come to him. Diego had been deep in his own memories when the scent of smoke had made its way into the room. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it didn’t matter. Diego gently moved the cat from his lap and was up before the volunteer even had a chance to react. Five’s back had turned rigid, the tell tale sign he was about to fall into another episode. Diego had waved off the volunteer, dropping down next to Five. They’d learned smoke was a trigger weeks before when Diego had burnt some chicken, he’d immediately discarded all the candles in the house after that just to be safe. He had rubbed Five’s back, attempting to bring him out of the flashback. As he’d been doing that, the cat had come out of its hiding place, curious. It had slowly walked up to Five, sniffing his knee. When the episode was over, both Diego and Five were convinced that the cat was the one. 

After that, Five had bonded with the cat quickly, naming her ‘Duchess Jellybean’ because for some reason, the kid has always had a very strange approach to naming. Diego had refused to call the cat her full name, sticking with Jellybean instead. Jellybean and Five had quickly become inseparable. The cat had helped Five through many of his episodes, getting Diego’s attention and leading him to Five where she’d plot onto his lap, reminding him he’s not in the apocalypse anymore. 

“Dad?” Five questions, voice breaking Diego from his memories.

“Yeah, kiddo?” Diego mumbles, pulling the oven mitts off and reaching over to turn the oven off.

“You just went quiet there for a second.”

“I’m just really excited to see you.” Diego softly tells him, leaning back against the counter and holding the phone closer to his ear.

“Me too.” Five says. Diego can hear his smile through the phone. “I’ll text you when I get on the plane and I’ll call you when I land, okay?”

“Sounds good. I love you, be safe.”

“I will. I love you too.”

Diego hangs up the phone. He smiles as he stares down at Five’s contact photo for a moment. He sighs, pocketing his phone and looking around the kitchen once more. It’s a good day. 

* * *

“Benerino, we’re home!” Klaus shouts as he shuts the door behind himself.

A door opens from the other side of the apartment and within seconds Ben is sliding across the floor in his socks, followed by a golden retriever. The dog jumps up at Klaus as Ben stops and stares at the two men still standing in the doorway.

“Hi, baby.” Klaus coos, bending to let the dog lick his face.

“Um, hello? Anything of importance to tell me?” Ben questions, hands on his hips.

Klaus kisses the dog on the head before straightening back up. He hums, placing his finger to his lip as if he’s deep in thought.

“Klaus, are you fucking kidding me?” Ben grumbles, before turning his attention to the man next to his brother. “Eli, how the hell can you stand this bitch?”

“Well, he’s stuck with me forever now!” Klaus shouts, grabbing Eli’s wrist and raising it into the air before the man can even open his mouth to respond.

Ben blinks at the ring on his friend’s finger. His face slowly grows, his mouth dropping.

“Holy shit!” He yells, grabbing Eli’s hand to get a closer look. “Wow, Klaus, I didn’t think you actually had it in you! It’s about fucking time!”

“Hurtful.” Klaus mumbles, patting Eli’s back to step around him towards the kitchen.

“I’d started to plan my own proposal, he was taking so long.” Eli teases.

Ben laughs, dropping his hand.

“Jesus, this is so great, guys. We have to celebrate!” He says with a grin, reaching down to pat the dog as it jumps in excitement.

“Nope, no celebrations yet!” Klaus calls from the kitchen. “We have to wait until tomorrow. You know how pissed our siblings are gonna be if we celebrate without them?” 

Ben shrugs following Eli into the kitchen. Nails clack on the floor as the dog trails behind them. They both lean against the counter, watching Klaus pour himself a glass of water. It’s nice, Ben thinks, to now expect Klaus to drink water even after proposing.

Even though Klaus had started to turn away from alcohol after Five had disappeared, he’d almost relapsed in the 1960’s. But now, he stays far away, reaching for water or juices instead. Ben couldn’t be more proud of his brother for choosing health and he thinks he must owe it in part to Eli for bringing Klaus so much happiness. 

Some days being stuck in the Umbrella Academy House had been rather depressing, especially since it hadn’t even felt like their house anymore. But, they’d pulled through, training each Hotel Oblivion member to be comfortable with their powers. Some took longer than others, like Sandra who killed everything she touched. That one ended up requiring Allison to perform a rumor, after the woman had begged them for it. But the others, for the most part, had been very rewarding. And finally, after almost four years, the last Hotel Oblivion member left to rejoin society. After that, Luther suggested they sell the house so they called up each of their siblings who readily gave their permission. It sold quickly and they donated the proceeds to the local adoption agency. Between Allison’s extensive bank accounts and their father’s money, they’re set for life which meant they could afford their own places. 

Ben and Klaus decided to get a place together, they’d grown inseparable once again. Luther decided he wanted to travel for a while, learn about the world he’d once craved while he’d been stuck on the Moon. He’d brought Lana, nightmare girl from Hotel Oblivion, with him which was a strange development. For the first two years they’d been back, Luther had tried to find his singer girlfriend from the other universe, attending her shows, but it had been impossible to reach her. The old job he’d had never opened. It became clear to Luther that their love was a once in a lifetime deal, so he moved on about as slowly as he moves on from everything, throwing himself into helping the Hotel Oblivion people. Lana had offered to talk him through his troubles, she was basically a therapist to half their family at that time. The strange yet beautiful thing they have grew from there.

Klaus surprisingly moved away from his extravagant tastes, still sick of the life he lived in the 60’s, so they settled on an apartment instead. Klaus ended up dating Eli again, which was both uncanny and wonderful. Wonderful mostly because it meant Ben got some alone time to read his book and learn piano without being disrupted. Of course there were softer reasons that Ben would refuse to admit to, like how Eli makes his brother better and how he honestly enjoys the man’s company. 

Ben looks between his brother and Eli, as he thinks about them, suddenly realizing something.

“Hey, does this mean I’m gonna have to move out?”

  
  


* * *

Allison locks her phone and holds it to her chest, her eyes shut and a smile on her face.

“Who was that?”

Allison blinks over at Vanya who’s standing in the dining room archway.

“I was just checking up on Ray.” Allison says, moving to set the phone on the counter. “It’s nice to hear his voice every now and then.”

Vanya nods with a small smile. She wishes Sissy was still alive to hear her calls, but she’s thankful to at least get to call Sissy’s cousin every now and then and get an update on how Harlan’s been. 

It had been hard when her and Allison had finally tracked down Sissy’s friend in California and they’d found out that Sissy had passed only a year before because of cancer. And even harder was the task of telling Harlan, but Vanya had waited until they’d found some of Sissy’s family. Everyone had been rightfully confused about Harlan’s age and how Vanya, a seemingly thirty year old, somehow knew their would-be almost 90 year old family member.

They’d stopped in Dallas before searching for Sissy. It made more sense to stop there first considering it was closer to their childhood home in New York than LA was. They’d found Ray still living in his and Allison’s old home, even at 85. He’d been remarried and had children. Although Allison couldn’t have expected much less, it still was another hurt to add to the list. She, Vanya, and Harlan had stayed for about an hour, talking with Ray and his family about everything they’d accomplished in Dallas.

The siblings had kept it together between their trips, until they’d found themselves staying in a hotel in LA. They’d both broken down over their lost loves and how cruel the universe could be to their family. They’d grown closer than ever before over their intermingling grief and found strength in each other. After two weeks of hiding away in a hotel, they’d finally found it within themselves, despite their nervousness, to seek out the people who’d adopted them in this universe. 

It’d been strange at first, meeting their parents who they’d never met before. But the people were so happy to see them, and had been so worried about them, that Allison and Vanya’s fears had all but evaporated. The love that their adoptive parents clearly had for their counterparts was mind blowing, a stark difference from the way Reginald had treated them. And even more surprising, was they’d known about their powers and had apparently dedicated Allison and Vanya’s early years to training them and helping them to understand the gravity of what they’d been gifted with. 

It’d been nice at first being sucked into a seemingly perfect family, but it’d quickly turned uncomfortable, especially when they were called by names they didn’t recognize. The imposter syndrome had hit them hard, but talking to the rest of their siblings, they realized they weren’t outliers, they’d all felt it. The rest of the siblings hadn’t found anyone that already knew them from this life - being none of them were famous like Allison, it’d been pure luck that Diego and Five had found her show, and it’s likely they’d been spread around the globe rather than all in New York together. But, they still felt like they’d practically stolen another version of themselves’ lives and they’d stolen from the people that had been in their lives. Ben was the only one who didn’t have to experience the feeling, having both versions of himself combined. Five had explained it having something to do with Ben time traveling as a ghost - the reason why he hadn’t taken the place of the other version of himself and why the rest of the siblings had. Much like most scientific things Five attempts to explain, none of the siblings had really understood what he’d meant, but had accepted it nonetheless.

Eventually Vanya and Allison had broken and explained everything to their adoptive parents. They’d been confused and upset for a while, but had eventually come around, telling their daughters that they were the same people, regardless of where they came from and they still would love them as they had before. They’d offered for Allison and Vanya to stay with them, but the sisters had opted to find their own housing, still struggling with the strangeness of the situation.

“Hey, you still wanna help me with Teddy’s world famous mac n cheese?” Allison asks with a wiggle of her brows, breaking Vanya from her thoughts.

Teddy is what they call their adoptive father. They’d just left from their early Thanksgiving at their parents’ house, in tow with Teddy’s recipe, Allison hoping to beat the rest of her siblings’ dishes.

Vanya opens her mouth to answer but a scream cuts her off. 

“Maybe you should check on that first?” Vanya offers with a chuckle. 

Allison nods with a fond roll of her eyes, running out of the dining room.

She enters one of her kid’s rooms where the screaming had originated from. 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” She asks, finding her child hiding under the blankets on their bed.

“There’s something under my bed.” He whimpers, pulling the blankets down just barely under his eyes to look at his mom.

Allison heads over to the bed, bending down and raising the bed skirt. There, one of her other children is, giggling under the bed with a finger over her lips. Allison shakes her head, reaching out. Her kid grabs her hand letting herself be dragged out from under the bed.

“Luke, it’s just your sister being mean.” Allison explains, pulling the blanket down away from her kid’s face.

“Jenna!” Luke whines, glaring at his sister as he fully sits up.

“You’re supposed to be packing for your Uncle’s house.” Allison chastises, with her hands on her hips.

“Is Five gonna be there?” Jenna asks, attempting to fix her mussed hair.

“Five only visits when his cousins are being good.” 

Jenna’s eyes widen and she quickly runs away to her own room. Luke gets off of his bed and heads over to his bag, throwing clothes into it. Allison smiles, heading out of the room. As she walks down the hall, she peeks into her last child’s room. Daniel’s quietly packing, but glances over at his mom at the sound of her in the doorway. She blows a kiss to him and he pretends to catch it with a cute grin on his face. She heads back to the kitchen, finding Vanya already waiting for her.

Four years ago and loads of therapy later, Allison had started to look into fostering and adopting. Vanya had moved out to live with her girlfriend so Allison had started to feel a bit lonely and like something was missing, but she’d felt like that for a while with the hole that had been carved by Claire’s absence. Despite a never fillable hole, she had plenty of time (and money) and love to dedicate to someone or multiple someones who needed it. She’d looked into fostering and had found a set of three siblings who had been struggling to find a home, the youngest, Luke, was four and the oldest, Jenna, was seven. She’d immediately gone through the process to foster them. It’d been a lot of work, proving that she, as a single mother, had the means to support three children, but had been so worth it. She’d fostered them for a year and within that year they’d already started to call her mom and had begged her to adopt them. She hadn’t needed them to beg her for her to have known the moment she’d met them that they’d become her children, but it’d been wonderful to know they loved her as much as she loved them. 

“Mac n cheese?” Vanya questions, holding up a box of elbow noodles.

“Oh, I can’t wait to shove it in Diego’s face when he realizes I made the best dish this year.” Allison grins, opening the pantry door to find the ingredients.

* * *

Luther stands in the middle of the floor, holding a pad up as the kids each take their turn trying to kick him. 

“When’s Diego gonna be back?” Brandy asks as she kicks the pad with a thunk.

“Am I not good enough for you kids?” Luther teases, holding the pad out for the girl to kick again. 

“We just like his knife tricks.” Brandy shrugs, moving to kick but missing by a few centimeters.

The rest of the kids in the line all murmur their agreement.

“Make sure you keep balance on your back foot.” Luther instructs her, motioning for the next girl to step forward.

“Diego’s gonna be back in a couple days after Five heads back to college.” He explains, moving the pad back to his chest.

“Five’s here?!” One of the boys further down the line shouts.

“Yes, but he probably won’t come in. He’ll be back during winter break and I’m sure he’ll come in then.” Luther offers as Chelsea kicks at him.

The children all groan and start complaining. 

“Hey, I know Five’s your favorite, but I’m pretty cool too!” Luther grumbles, moving the pad to the side.

The next child steps up, the youngest of their group, and smiles up at Luther.

“You’re my favorite.” He says with a toothy smile. 

Luther almost melts at the eight year old, lowering the pad enough for him to be able to reach it. 

He and Diego decided to start a self defense class a few years back, after the Hotel Oblivion people had all trickled back into society and Luther had finished his travels. Diego had been aching for something to do to help people and Five had begged Luther to offer the idea up, worried that Diego would return to his vigilante tendencies while Five would be off at college. Most of the family had worried about the same thing themselves, so Luther had no problem asking Diego to work with him. Soon after they’d opened up their own self defense classes and they’d gotten a decent amount of students, Diego had done some showing off with his knives. It was no surprise that the students quickly grew to favor him, but thankfully some still liked Luther more and his “cool King-Kong”ness. Frankly it was a bit offensive, but he’d mostly gotten over the name back in the 1960’s. While some of the kids preferred to practice with him and some preferred Diego, they all obsessed over Five. They all thought his prosthetic hand was the coolest thing in the world and every time he came in to visit Diego, they’d all immediately clatter around him, begging him to practice with them. Five was the best out of the three of them when it came to teaching self defense. He’d always been the quickest on his feet, Luther would give him that. But it was abundantly clear, when he’d first given in and practiced with the kids, just how hard it was for him to control his power usage. He’d gotten better over the last few years after being forced to hide his powers in college, but he’d definitely almost slipped up a few times around the kids. Luther can only imagine what would happen if Five accidently used his powers around the kids, he would never hear the end of it. He already gets a question once a week on when Five will be back, but after something like that? He’d probably get constant Five questions. He likes to pretend the questions annoy him, but secretly he loves that the kids love Five, he can tell how happy it makes his little brother whenever he visits. 

Luther feels a soft kick to his shin and looks down to see Khalid staring up at him with a frown. Luther grimaces, offering a quick apology, and fixing the pad in front of him. 

He’s been thinking about his family a lot lately, but around this time of the year, it’s not unusual. 

* * *

“Hey, Josh!” Five calls as he shoves another book off of his desk and into his backpack.

His roommate’s head pops out of the bathroom, a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. Josh is a clean freak in all facets of his life which means he doesn’t just go around disinfecting their entire room once a day, but he also brushes his teeth like five times a day. Five’s used to it at this point so he ignores his desire to taunt and instead says “Dad’s cool with you and your mom coming tomorrow.”

Josh gives him a thumb’s up before disappearing back into the bathroom. Five zips his backpack and moves to sit it on the bed next to his other bag. He returns to his desk plopping down into the seat. He rolls the sleeve on his hoodie up and sets his left arm on top of the desk. He starts the process of preparing for his prosthetic, rubbing the end of his arm with lotion.

“You sure he’s cool with it?” Josh questions, stepping out of the bathroom.

“Yeah.” Five answers absentmindedly as he pulls the fabric cover up around the end of his arm.

“You sure your mom’s cool with that long ass drive?” Five asks, momentarily glancing up at his roommate.

“It’s like four and a half hours, no big deal.” Josh says with a shrug, leaning against the wall next to the bathroom.

“I can’t imagine being cooped up in a car for that long.” Five mumbles, pulling his prosthetic up his arm.

“Yeah well you’re just lucky your jackass old man dropped dead and left behind all that dough. Otherwise you’d have to drive like the rest of us normal people who aren’t insanely rich.”

“Whatever. I’m sure your gas money will cost more than my plane ticket.” Five laughs as he buckles the prosthetic into place. “I’ll gladly let you use the jackass’s money to buy a plane ticket if you give me more than a day’s heads-up next time, you know, when there’s still seats left.” 

“Hey, you know how my mom is, she doesn’t like to impose.” Josh says with a shrug.

“For the amount of times she’s let us stay at her place to study, I don’t think one holiday is such a big deal.” Five offers, flexing his left arm and testing his hand movements.

“I don’t know what to tell you, man.” Josh mumbles as he glances down at his watch. “Shouldn’t you be going?” 

“Yeah, I’m just waiting on the Uber.” Five answers, picking up his phone to check for notifications.

He feels a presence down at his feet and glances under the desk. Duchess Jellybean is rubbing up against his leg, likely feeling the nervousness rolling off of him. As many times as he’s made the trip, flying solo always makes him anxious. Hence why he’s put his prosthetic on. Usually he prefers to go without it, it’s not the most comfortable, but in busy public places like airports he likes to wear it and pull his sleeve down so he doesn’t get as many looks. Of course that works up until the metal scanner where he has to awkwardly explain the situation, but thankfully most of the workers recognize him at this point and don’t hassle him too much about it. 

“You okay?” Josh asks from where he’s still leaning against the wall.

“I’m fine.” Five mutters, reaching across his desk to grab his pill bottle.

He glances over at his roommate who’s staring back at him.

“You know how I am.” He says with a wave of his hand. “Anxiety or whatever.”

He pops a pill into his mouth and screws the top back on before tossing it over to his bed.

“Hey, just remember it’s a quick flight and then you can chill with your dad.” Josh reminds him, patting him on the back as he heads over to his own desk.

“You’re right.” Five agrees with a nod as he checks his phone again. “Looks like my Uber is almost here, I should head down.”

He gets up from his desk, shoves his phone in his pocket, and picks up his cat as he heads over to his bed. He gently maneuvers Jellybean into the pet carrier sitting on top of his comforter. She immediately starts meowing so he reaches into his backpack, retrieving the bag of treats. He pulls one out and plops it into the carrier, immediately silencing the cat as she munches on the treat. He smiles, dropping the bag back into his backpack and shoving the pill bottle in as well. He pulls the backpack on and slips the other bag on his left shoulder, grabbing Jellybean’s carrier in his right hand. 

“Need help?” Josh offers, glancing up from his computer. 

“Nah, I got this.” Five says, rolling his shoulder to push the bag further towards his neck. “See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.” Josh says with a small wave.

  
  


* * *

Five makes it onto the plane without incident. Duchess Jellybean is in her carrier under his seat, fast asleep. He quickly texts Diego and then turns his phone off, settling into his chair. He glances around the plane, everyone else is getting comfortable, ready for takeoff. His eyes catch on a woman near the front of the cabin, she’s vaguely familiar. She’s staring back at him with calculating eyes. He peeks behind himself, but the person in the seat is busy looking down at their phone in their lap. He turns back to the front, his eyes searching for the woman, but she’s now gone. He lets out a shaky exhale, his right hand tightening against his thigh. He can hear Jellybean make a low noise.

“I’m okay.” He whispers, forcing his body to lose its rigidness. 

He leans his head against the window, glancing once more around the plane. When no one else appears to be watching him strangely, he turns his attention to the landscape outside the widow. As his leg starts to shake, he reminds himself that he’ll be home within two hours.

The plane takes off and his mind begins to focus on his dissertation instead of his nervousness. _Wormholes : A Ripple in Time and Space._ It’s an ironic topic, that much Five knows, but his curiosity in the subject has made it much more interesting to research. Plus, it’s funny to read about the array of wrong interpretations on what a wormhole would look like. Josh is a computer science major, but even he had been seemingly consumed by Five’s dumbed down explanation of what a wormhole is and how it would appear. Of course, it was a bit of a cheat, considering he has first hand knowledge, but no one needs to know that. The paper is due before winter break, so at this point he’s just doing last minute reviews. He’s pretty proud of it and since he’s been working on it for the past year and half, he’s sure it’s almost perfect. 

He’d known the moment he started his Master’s last year that he’d be writing about wormholes in one way or another. His reasoning had been partly due to interest, but mostly due to his desire to shove it in Reginald’s face. In fact, his entire college career was based on sticking it to the Man, Reginald in this case. He’s the first of his siblings to go to college, which isn’t a surprise given Reginald wasn’t quite the parent to encourage schooling. Of course he’d taught them shit, like six different languages, but the focus was on training, on learning to become a weapon rather than a growing human being. 

His siblings had been so proud of him, Diego had cried. Whether it was because he was happy for him or sad he was leaving is another question entirely. It’d been an uphill battle getting to that point, he’d spent four years taking half online high school classes and half college credit classes. Diego had been worried that so many classes, paired with him relearning how to write with his non-dominant hand, relearning his powers and the hours upon hours of therapy would be too much for him. Five had thrived instead, any time he’d had away from therapy was focused on school or visiting his siblings at the Umbrella Academy, where they’d helped him train with his powers. He didn’t have much time to waste thinking about terrible things outside of therapy and it ended up helping a lot to compartmentalize the trauma into select times of the day. Because he’d taken so many college classes within the four years, he had been able to finish his Bachelor’s in only two years. And now, he’s a semester and a few weeks away from graduating with his Master’s. Diego had promised him that after his graduation, they’d go on a long vacation to somewhere cool abroad. Five’s been looking forward to that for the past year.

In fact, as Five watches the ground grow smaller and smaller through the window, he realizes just how much he’s looking forward to the future. He hasn’t decided on a lot of things, like if he’ll get his Doctorate or not, but he and Diego’s impending trip and his family’s now annual Christmas trip have given him a lot to be excited about. 

He smiles as he thinks about their family trip to Colorado last year. They’d all had a blast, especially Diego who’d figured out in the middle of their snowball fight that he can change the trajectory of snowballs too. Five lightly laughs to himself at the memory. He shuts his eyes, picturing his siblings’ faces. He can’t wait to see them all tomorrow.

* * *

Diego paces in front of the door. Five had called him thirty minutes ago, telling him he’d gotten off the plane and was getting in an Uber. Diego had complained, as he always does, at Five not letting him pick him up and his son had eloquently told him, as he always does, it’d be dumb for him to drive that far and back to pick him up. So, now, Diego is left to anxiously await Five’s arrival. Everything’s ready: the Christmas lights are on, there’s milk boiling on the stove for hot chocolate, coffee brewing for his caffeine addict kid, and _Elf_ is already in the DVD player. 

There’s a knock on the door and Diego almost explodes from excitement as he rips it open. Before he can blink, he’s stumbling backwards as Five practically jumps into his arms. He hugs him back tightly as his kid’s legs wrap around him. He glances down at the ground where Five’s bags are. Jellybean is staring up at him from inside her carrier, already looking regally pissed off at being left on the ground. 

“Alright, Five, I love you, but you may be getting a bit too big for the whole koala thing.” Diego grunts, adjusting his hold.

Despite his words, as Five moves to let go, Diego hugs him tighter. 

“You love the koala hug.” Five mutters into Diego’s neck.

Diego smiles, unable to correct the statement. Five finally lets go, dropping back to the ground. 

“Let me help you with your stuff. Better get Jellybean in here before she gets too pissy.” 

The cat meows at hearing her own name. Five chuckles, bending to pick up the carrier. Diego grabs his backpack and other bag and follows him back into the house. 

“Daddd,” Five whines, as he takes in the decorations. “You’re supposed to wait for me to decorate.”

“I’m sorry, you know how excited I get about Christmas.”

Five groans, glaring at Diego as he sets the pet carrier down on the couch.

“Thank God you at least waited on the tree.” Five mumbles, opening the carrier to let Jellybean out. 

Diego exaggeratedly gasps as he heads to the kitchen.

“I would never get the tree without you!” He shouts from the other room.

Five rolls his eyes fondly. Jellybean slowly comes out of the carrier, sniffing the air. She blinks around the room, taking in the familiar settings. Five settles on the couch next to her, leaning against the back cushion. She cautiously steps on his lap, continuously glancing around. When she decides it’s safe enough, she walks into a circle for a moment before laying down in Five’s lap. He reaches over depositing the carrier onto the ground. 

Five shuts his eyes at the comforting smell of coffee wafting through the air. Diego returns moments later with two mugs. 

“Coffee for Five, Hot Chocolate for Dad.” Diego says, handing the cup over. 

“You’re a nerd.” Five mumbles as he sips his coffee.

“Yeah, okay Mr. Astrophysics-Masters-Honors-Student.” Diego quips, bumping Five’s shoulder as he sits down next to him.

“Whatever.” Five grumbles, knocking Diego’s shoulder in retaliation. “We’re watching _Elf_ right? I brought my _Elf_ socks.” 

He raises his leg, his pants shifting back to show he is indeed wearing _Elf_ socks. Diego snorts at the sight. Jellybean glares up at both of them for the disruption of her nap. 

“Of course we’re watching _Elf._ ” Diego says incredulously, reaching out to grab the remote from the coffee table. 

“Good.” Five adds, settling deeper into the couch.

As Diego turns on the TV, Five pulls his hoodie sleeve up and starts undoing the buckles on his prosthetic. Diego notices the shirt and smiles to himself. Five had stolen the hoodie before he left for his first year of college, he'd been so smug about stealing the item right under Diego's nose. Truthfully, Diego had bought it with the sole hope that Five would steal it from him, but he had let Five have his moment and had pretended to be surprised that the hoodie went missing. 

“How’s your prosthetic?” Diego asks, glancing between the remote and Five’s arm. “Any issues?”

“Nah, still gets the job done.” Five says, pulling the device off along with the fabric around his arm. 

Diego takes them both from him and sets them on the table. 

“Good.” Diego whispers, depositing the remote on the arm rest next to him.

Now that the movie’s starting, Five leans his head down to rest on Diego’s shoulder. 

_“Oh, hello, you’re probably here about the story…”_

Diego smiles, dropping his head down on top of Five’s. It’s a good day.  
  


* * *

Five jolts awake the next morning to shouting. Jellybean startles where she’s laying on his chest. He glances around his room, trying to collect his surroundings. There’s another shout, this time it’s very clearly Klaus’s voice, so Five rolls his eyes and settles back into his bed, not feeling the concern he had seconds ago. The door bangs open and Five almost spatial jumps away, his heart racing.

“Fivey, get up, your favorite sibling is here.” Klaus says as he steps into the room.

Five can feel his powers dissolve at the sight of his asshole brother.

“He’s right, I am here.” Ben teases, leaning over Klaus’s shoulder to look at Five.

“I’m clearly his favorite.” Klaus argues, elbowing Ben who falls backwards with a grunt.

“Well, I guess if I had to pick between the two of you…” Five mumbles, trailing off as he purposefully focuses his eyes on Ben.

“No! No, don’t say it!” Klaus shouts.

Jellybean runs away at the excessive noise, jumping off the bed.

“Look what you-” Five doesn’t get the chance to finish scolding his brother before said brother is tackling him into his bed.

“Jesus, Klaus!” Five grunts under the weight of his brother.

He sputters against the hair in his face. Klaus moves his head up to look at Five, their noses almost touching. 

“Why were you shouting earlier?” Five grumbles.

“Ugh, what is it with you and your dad and your “Why are you shouting, Klaus? You’re gonna wake the neighbors, Klaus”? Like, jeez, can’t I be excited to see my siblings?”

“When’s the last time you saw Diego?” Five questions, face thoroughly unenthused with Klaus’s explanation.

“Like two days ago, but what does that matter?! I haven’t seen you since Halloween when you and your nerdy roommate dressed up as two Santa Clauses.”

“We were scientists. Possibly the most famous scientist duo of all time, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. But sure, whatever you say.” Five grumbles, rolling his head away from Klaus’s face.

“Either way you both managed to look like two old white men, even though your roommate is decidedly not white.”

“Nope, definitely not. Will you get the hell off of me now?” Five complains, trying to get out from under his brother.

“Sure, but get up and love us.” Klaus says, pushing himself up off of the bed. “First, brush your teeth, you have serious morning breath.”

Five rolls his eyes as Ben grabs Klaus’s arm and yanks him out of the room. 

“Missed you bro.” Ben whispers with a wink as he shuts the door.

Diego’s far away voice makes itself known.

_“Can you please stop harassing my child?”_

_“Can you stop being a hater?”_

Five grumbles to himself as he gets up and heads to the bathroom. He finds himself looking into the mirror. His skin still holds a glow from their family beach trip over the summer. His eyes are bright and there’s not the abysmal darkness under them that there used to be when he’d stay up studying all night. He pats his hair down where it’s sticking up, he’s kept it styled similarly to when he was younger with his bangs swooped to one side. He smiles with little effort, the action illuminating his eyes. He reaches down to grab his toothbrush.

* * *

“They literally begged me like ten times for Five to come visit them.” Luther groans as he slumps against the kitchen counter.

“Hey, he’s only gonna be home for a few days, no way are those little bastards stealing him away.” Diego says as he puts the turkey in the oven.

“Well, you’ll have to face their wrath then cause I am not taking the fall for that.” Luther mumbles, taking a sip from his beer.

Diego shuts the oven and shrugs with a “Whatever, Luther.”

Diego can hear the front door open and Klaus’s shout one millisecond later.

“Vanny! Ally! Lukey! Jenny! Danny!”

Diego rolls his eyes at his brother’s inability to control his loudness. He wipes his hands off on the towel and follows Luther out of the kitchen. Once they reach the front door where Ben and Klaus are hugging their niece and nephews, Diego and Luther immediately drop to their knees, awaiting their turn in the child hug train. 

“Okay, but where’s my best friend Zoe?” Klaus questions as he separates from Jenna’s embrace and hugs Vanya next.

“Ah, she had work.” Vanya explains into his shoulder.

“On Thanksgiving?” Diego questions, as if the holiday is a sacred thing that he hadn’t just started celebrating like five years ago. “Jesus, fuck that shit.” 

“Seriously? Neither Zoe nor Lana could deign us with their presence? I have big news to share.” Klaus moans, letting go of Vanya to hug Allison.

“You do now?” Allison teases, tightly hugging her brother.

“What big news?” Five asks as he steps up behind his siblings.

“Five!” The kids all shout, changing their trajectory from Diego and Luther straight to Five instead.

Five is tackled for the second time this morning, falling to the ground with three children on top of him. Luther and Diego awkwardly get up, accepting hugs from their sisters instead.

“Where’s Eli?” Vanya asks, trying to peek down the hallway into the living room.

“Oh, he’s in the living room watching the Macy Day Parade, you know how he is about that shit. Eli, come say hello to my fucking family!” Klaus shouts, cupping his hands to make himself even louder.

Within a minute, Eli walks into the room, glancing down at the floor where Five is being mercilessly tickled.

“Five.” He greets with a nod.

“E-Eli.” Five tries to say professionally, but it comes out as a mangled half-giggle instead as he rolls on the floor.

Five hadn’t liked Eli when he’d first met him, had thought he tried too hard to be “cool.” Especially with how Klaus tells the story of how they met, or how they met again in this universe. Klaus had located Eli’s mom after finding out that her other son still died in this universe. He’d visited her, offering to communicate with her son for her for free. Eli had come into one of their sessions the same way he had once before with the same accusations. Klaus had charmed him similarly to before and they’d found themselves eventually going on dates. When Klaus had first introduced him to the family six years ago, he’d come off far too composed for Five’s liking, especially for someone dating Klaus. Five had maintained these thoughts for a year, suspiciously watching Eli like a hawk when he’d come to holiday events, just waiting for him to slip up. But then, someone had mentioned _Star Wars_ and Eli had muttered something about the force being bullshit. Five had decided to turn over a new leaf then and there because of _Star Wars_ , much to Diego’s chagrin. Now, they maintain a feigned professional relationship where they pretend to not care too much about each other, but secretly judge everyone together, especially over movie tastes.

Eli joins the rest of the adults. They talk amongst each other as Five is dying of laughter on the ground, attempting to escape from the children attacking him. 

“Alright, you kids give Five a break and come hug your Uncle Luther.” Luther says, winking at Five who’s turned breathless.

The children run away to hug Luther, leaving Five to attempt to collect himself. He brushes the tears away from his face, sitting up with an aching stomach. Vanya walks over to him offering a hand to which he gladly accepts. She pulls him up and into a hug. Allison joins in, hugging him from behind. Ben coos, jumping into the embrace as well.

“Okay, everyone, lunch is planned for twelve,” Diego starts, gaining the attention of all of his siblings. “Which means we have two hours to finish the food, so we need to relocate to the kitchen.” 

“Yes, let me go grab the mac n cheese from the car.” Allison says, letting go of her younger brother.

“Mac n cheese?!” Klaus shouts, stepping out of the way for Allison to pass. “You sure know the way to my heart.” 

  
  


* * *

The kitchen is too crowded for them all to stand around, so Five, Luther, and Ben sit on the barstools at the island in the middle of the room instead. The kids and Eli are in the living room watching the parade. 

Diego is busy making bread with Allison while Klaus is doing the dishes and Vanya is pouring herself wine. Five sees it coming from a mile away, the twinkle in his brother’s eyes, it had been too long since Klaus had done something truly devious. Five opens his mouth to warn Diego, but it’s too late. Klaus raises the spray hose and shoots it at Diego. The room devolves into screaming, Vanya almost drops her wine glass.

“What the hell?!” Diego shouts, twisting around.

He sputters as water hits his face before Klaus turns it off.

“You bastard!” Diego growls, reaching behind himself to grab a fistful of flour. 

He slings it at Klaus. It explodes into a cloud, landing in Klaus’s hair and face. Luther gets up in a flash, before Klaus can turn the water back on, and wraps his arms around his brother picking him up in the air. Klaus kicks his feet, hissing at Diego who’s glaring at him.

“Why the hell’d you do that?! I just mopped this floor yesterday!” Diego yells, shaking his head. 

Allison shrieks when water droplets hit her. 

“Hey, I was just trying to extra mop it.” Klaus offers with a Cheshire grin.

Diego growls at his brother.

“No mac n cheese for you, Klaus.” Allison chastises, waving a finger at her brother.

“NO!” Klaus practically screams, wiggling in Luther’s grasp.

“I’ll get towels…” Five offers, taking any excuse to get away from the excessive shouting.

He heads out of the kitchen, past the living room where he waves at the kids, and down the hallway. He glances at the wall and the pictures as he passes them. There’s family photos scattered with all of them together and their bright smiling faces. Opposite of their childhood photos, the amount of people in these ones grow larger and larger instead of smaller. There’s photos of just Five and Diego too. One from their family’s first outing to the beach. Diego’s face is pressed against Five’s, his hand smooshing his brother’s to his own. They’re both smiling very wide, eyes happy and content. Five hums at the picture fondly as he continues down the hall. He stops once more in front of the picture in the middle of the wall. It’s embarrassing. It’s from Five’s sixteenth birthday. Five and Diego are crying heavily, their faces are red, but they’re smiling. Five’s holding up adoption papers. It had taken many rumors from Allison and quite a lot of blubbering from Diego, but he’d handed them to Five as soon as he’d blown out his candles. Of course, Five had said yes, after a few moments of looking like a fish out of water. 

Five reaches out, gently touching the frame. That had been a tough year. Diego had convinced him to get therapy, only after agreeing to go himself. Therapy had been excruciating, but it’d helped that it was Lana, the woman Luther had met in Hotel Oblivion, who’d been doing it for them. Although she wasn’t quite the professional, she had a lot of experience with human emotion. She also understood the feeling of powers and being thrust into a world not prepared for you. Plus it was much easier to talk about the end of the world and jumping into an apocalypse with someone who was very much so on the same scale of abnormality. Diego had him go to a normal therapist as well to make sure he was getting all the possible help and treatments he needed. Of course, this required quite a few omissions on Five’s part. Had he been forced to speak to his normal therapist about all his issues, their brains might have exploded. All in all, it was helpful. Of course it didn’t negate all of the terrible things that had happened, but it made his trauma less prone to attack him when he least expected it. And now he has more productive ways of combating it, rather than freezing on the spot and needing Diego to baby him.

“Five!” Diego calls, breaking him out of the memory. 

He shakes his head, smile etched on his face as he continues to the laundry room to finally retrieve the towel. He returns to the kitchen, tossing the towel to Diego who is quick to pat himself dry. He hears a knock on the door and pulls his phone out, just now noticing a text from his roommate.

“It’s Josh and his mom.” Five says, grabbing Diego’s arm and dragging him along with him to the door.

Diego is still in the midst of drying his hair as Five opens the door. Josh is standing next to his mom who’s holding a bowl of mashed potatoes in her hands.

“Hey Josh and…” Diego trails off, eyes fixated on the woman in front of him. 

“Tasha, Tasha Young.” Josh’s mom introduces, handing the bowl over to her son to hold out her hand.

Diego awkwardly rubs his hand on the towel before grabbing hers and shaking it.

“Well-uh-come on in,” He offers, stepping out of the way and almost tripping over his own feet.

“I can’t thank you enough for allowing us to spend Thanksgiving with your family. Five is such a sweetheart for inviting us,” She says, appreciatively smiling over at Five.

“That’s my kid.” Diego agrees, bumping his shoulder with Five’s.

“I can’t brag enough about him. He’s the perfect gentleman when the boys come over to study. You really raised him right.” 

Diego seems to inflate with the praise, completely absorbed by the conversation, his eyes never leaving Tasha’s.

“I’ve heard great things about Josh too,” Diego starts, shuffling his feet. “We all loved him at Halloween-”

Five leads Josh away from the conversation to take the mashed potatoes to the kitchen. Five watches from afar as his dad and Josh’s mom converse. He smirks to himself, leaning against the wall between the rooms. He can hear Josh and Klaus talking behind him, but he focuses on the way his dad is standing straighter and the way his hands are nervously playing with the towel across his shoulder. Five has been planning this meet up for months, he just hadn’t been sure when would be the perfect time to conduct it. But then, Josh had mentioned in passing that they usually celebrate Thanksgiving alone and Five took his golden opportunity. He decides to stop his scheming and joins Klaus and Josh’s conversation before his brother can scare his roommate off. 

* * *

Twelve comes faster than expected with all the conversations, food preparations, and Macy Day Parade viewings. 

“Alright, people, the parade is over and you know what that means...food time!” Klaus shouts excitedly, grabbing his fiancé’s arm and pulling him up from the couch.

“Klaus is right for once-” Diego starts.

“Hey!”

“Let’s migrate to the dining room.” Diego instructs, motioning to the room.

The family heads to the dining room which is made up of three tables, one real dining table and two plastic tables that Diego had to bring in from the garage. Thankfully, Klaus and Ben had brought extra chairs from their apartment. Five pushes his siblings around to specific seats he’s planned out. He leaves half of one side of the table empty for himself, Josh, Diego, and Josh’s mom. It ends up working out perfectly with him sitting between Diego and his roommate and Diego sitting next to Tasha. Of course the moment they sit down, Diego kicks him under the table for his conspiring, but it’s worth it. 

“Hargreeves Thanksgiving 2027!” Klaus yells, raising his glass in the air.

The family follows suit, everyone raising their glasses and clinking them against each other. Following the toast, the food passes around the table. Small separate conversations start as they begin to eat. Five sneakily listens to Diego’s conversation with Tasha, multi-tasking as he answers his siblings’ questions about how school’s going. 

“So, are you thinking about getting your Doctorate?” Ben questions, shoving a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

Diego’s conversation falls silent as he pays attention to Five’s answer. Five glances between Diego and Ben.

“No...I think I might stay home for awhile.” Five answers, setting his fork down. 

He can see Diego basically vibrating in the seat next to him.

“Five, are you sure?” His dad asks, attempting to keep his voice level but excitement clearly weaving into his words.

“Yeah, I mean I’ll at least take a year off.” Five says with a shrug, turning in his seat to fully look at Diego. “I miss being home.”

“Oh, thank God.” Diego sighs happily. “Well, not to pressure you or anything, but I did kinda save some job posts just in case you would end up deciding to stay home. Of course, you still have a semester left, but it’s never too early to start looking.”

“Of course you did.” Five laughs, shaking his head affectionately. 

“Well, this is great news, Five!” Ben says, leaning across the table. “We can finally get the book club up and running again.”

“Ugh, nerds.” Klaus groans. “Speaking of great news, I have some great news myself.”

“Which is?” Luther questions, eyebrow raising.

Klaus starts his own drum roll, elbowing Ben and Eli until they join in.

“Eli and I are getting married!” He shrieks, unable to keep the secret a moment longer.

The room explodes in chaos. The kids are questioning what just happened while the siblings are all freaking out, screaming about how Klaus hadn’t even told them he was proposing. Allison and Luther start crying out of happiness. Vanya gets out of her seat to hug Klaus and Ben reaches out to pat Eli’s back, despite already knowing the information. Diego and Five lean halfway over the table to look at the ring Eli had taken out of hiding. That sets the tone for the rest of the meal, everyone happily eating and discussing their lives. 

“You know,” Diego says, catching Five’s eyes. “I was thinking we could go get the tree tonight. Decorate it with all of us together.”

Five smiles at the suggestion.

“Sounds great.” He whispers, eyes gleaming as he scans the table.

Everyone’s involved in different conversations, but they all look incredibly happy. It’s strange how inverted their lives are from childhood. The silent lunches and dinners they had to sit through, even during Thanksgiving and Christmas. The meals they’d dissociate at, wishing they could be anywhere else. But, now? All Five wants is to live in this moment and to stay in it forever, sitting at the table with his family, food and happiness boundless. Three things he’d once desperately wished for are now right here in front of him for the taking. He glances at each of his siblings’ faces, branding his mind with the moment, with their smiles, with the liveliness of the room. His eyes finally settle on Diego, who’s staring at him with so much love Five could drown in it.

Once upon a time he’d felt _faded_ from his siblings’ lives, _fractured_ as if pieces of himself were missing, but now, looking at Diego, all he feels is _found_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sad that this series is over, it’s become like my baby so I might be back with one-shots or such in the same universe, especially since we had such a big time jump! I’m also planning out another Five & Diego multi-chapter fic so look out for that if you’re interested! Thank you all again for everything, I’m so appreciative of you!


End file.
